Articles

First published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The health of patients with cataracts is being forgotten by both major parties in the debate about Medicare rebates for cataract surgery and for joint injections. The Federal Government’s main interest appears to be to save money even though it knows that some eye surgeons and arthritis specialists will not reduce their fees, thus leaving patients to pay more or simply not have the vision saving operation or the joint injections which these highly skilled health professionals can perform.

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First published: Friday, November 21, 2008

Are doctors the cornerstones of primary health care? If they are currently, they shouldn’t be. Patients should be. The fact that we have in this country a health system which uses a funding system for primary care centred around funding providers – not patients, not need – is a sad reflection that patients are no longer the cornerstone of primary care.

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First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

It’s tough losing a war of conquest. The historical record confirms that, in all times and places, defeated peoples whose land is seized do badly.

History gets written, and sometimes totally sanitised, by the victors. Despite this, Aboriginal health statistics–for instance a two-decade deficit in life expectancy–provide an objective and persistent reminder that something is very wrong.

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First published: Sunday, May 27, 2007

General practitioners get lots of mail.

At the top of my batch yesterday was a shiny green pamphlet that simply asked “Who’s really at risk of contracting hepatitis B?” It smelt like advertising so I cast it aside to open later.

Next up came a letter from a local dermatologist who wrote that my patient had been prescribed a particular brand-name cream. I couldn’t recall its active ingredient and flung the correspondence onto a check-my-facts pile, while quickly repressing the thought that this mightn’t have been necessary if I saw pharmaceutical company representatives or read drug ads.

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First published: Friday, August 11, 2006

We have seen sufficient evidence in The Age this week that many within and outside the medical profession are concerned about the effects on our patients of the marketing efforts of the pharmaceutical industry. From the industry’s influence on the direction and publication of research, through its support for patient lobby groups and its indirect advertising in the infotainment media, to its influence on opinion leaders and ultimately on the prescribing patterns of doctors at the coalface, this is an issue well recognised by professional colleges and sadly rejected by the largest medical political lobby, the Australian Medical Association.

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First published: Thursday, March 16, 2006

For how much longer can Australians take readily available good health care for granted? Even urban areas are experiencing shortages of doctors and hospital beds. Will it get worse? What are the solutions?

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First published: Friday, October 7, 2005

I only ever knew one of my grandfathers. He was, among other things, a Queensland Lightweight Boxing Champion and a disabled Gallipoli veteran. At about the age of eight, I remember accidentally bouncing a beach ball on his head. I floored him.

This taught me to be careful with Grandad. I’d known about his mangled arm but hadn’t realised bits of his skull were still in the Middle East.

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First published: Saturday, September 17, 2005

ONGOING education is a vital part of being a doctor – very little in medicine being still the same as when most of us left university. If you don’t keep up to date both you and your patients are in big trouble.

But recent criticisms of the postgraduate education system, Continuing Professional Development (CPD), is somewhat misplaced. Some doctors may be rorting the system – but most take it very seriously.

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