Australian general practice: time for renewed purpose

Badmouthing GPs

“…Comment: Chaffey and Brooks draw attention to the negative effects of specialists badmouthing general practitioners: undermining GPs’ self‐image and community status, and discouraging medical students and young doctors from pursuing a career in general practice. Hays has made similar observations about problem‐based learning exercises, written by specialists, wherein the mismanaged rural patient is “rescued by clinicians in the nearest large teaching hospital” 1 …”

“…Many bright school leavers are pursuing the “corporate world” in economics, law and business, but we can promote the overall satisfaction and variability of medicine in general and general practice in particular. The critical issues are outlined in the editorial 1 …”

“…To the Editor: Like Julian White, I was deeply moved to read the final chapter in the fable of the white‐tail spider 1 . White comments that “The lack of strong evidence to support [the association of white‐tail spider bites with necrotic ulcers] seemed to be a triviality to be ignored”.…”

General practice is not in crisis

“…The quoted comment from Donald Berwick — “we are carrying the nineteenth‐century clinical office into the twenty‐first‐century world” 2 — is surely the most inaccurate statement. Modern general practices bear no relationship to even their mid‐20th‐century counterparts, whereas the average specialist office still looks the same and functions in a similar way.…”

“…But the reality appears to be otherwise. Surveys attest that doctors are unhappy, and Australian general practitioners have not escaped the mood of discontent and disillusionment 1 , 2 …”