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Recent Posts
- Has lying become okay? (Asking for an American friend)
- Every disease has its queuer
- Australia’s best doctor comes in from the bush
- Tiwi GP – I can run, but can’t hide
- Coleman’s guide to poisoning and the dark arts
- Bad Habits
- Avoiding doctors like the plague
- Podcast 14: Alcohol-related harm in general practice
- Managing diabetes is not all about expensive medication
- My perfect medical statistics day
- GP Sceptics podcast 13: Nurses’ conflicts-of-interest
- A textbook case walked into the room
- Vitamins: mostly harmless, mostly profitable
- Post-truth therapy: alternative medicine with alternative facts
- Drug seeker basted me like a turkey
- 48-second GP consultations
- ‘Junior’ doctors: what’s in a label?
- GP Sceptics podcast 12: Doctors’ resilience
- GP Sceptics podcast 11: Medically Unexplained Symptoms
- How to measure med student empathy
- The Fed endures, and so must we
- Tamiflu: an expensive lesson in panic stockpiling
- GP Sceptics podcast 10: GPs at the Deep End
- Pain clinics: how did such a fresh idea turn sour?
- Not just a GP – I’m your specialist in uncertainty
- GP Sceptics podcast 9: The Environment
- Let’s celebrate the bolt-cutter surgeon
- Greater transparency on specialist fees: a no-brainer
- Four Corners Big Vitamins exposé: cuts both ways
- Five reasons why I’d still encourage my child to do medicine
- GP Sceptics podcast 8: Marketing
- Google Health Cards: the first test drive
- GP sceptics podcast 7: EBM Hijacked!
- Does the weather affect our joints?
- GP Sceptics podcast 6: Obesity – Christmas edition
- Anne Deveson, who destigmatised schizophrenia
- Why ‘medicine for the rich’ is sometimes inevitable
- GP Sceptics podcast 5: Lyme disease…don’t get sold a lemon
- GP Sceptics podcast 4: Addiction
- Homeopathy: US mandates ‘No evidence’ labels
Author Archives: Dr Justin Coleman
Bowel charts – the work of the devil
Bowel charts are a thing of the devil. I hate even mentioning them. In fact, I won’t; let’s talk about blood glucose diaries instead. A bunch of folk just like me, but sweeter, fill in a smattering of glucose … Continue reading
Irritating my whole profession
Recently I have found myself becoming more pugilistic and less pusillanimous. Or, to use fewer ‘pu’ words, more disputative and less tentative. Simpler still – and with apologies to women and rats – more man and less mouse. Not for … Continue reading
My performance-enhanced brain
Most conference presentations wash over my spongiform brain and swish straight down the drain. But one presentation at last month’s Australasian Medical Writers Association conference (forgive the plug) stuck in my mind, almost as if something had sealed up my … Continue reading
Media coverage for ‘No Advertising Please’
In the month since first appearing on the 7.30 Report, the No Advertising Please campaign has gained substantial media interest, reaching the shores of the US and UK. (Updates 6 Nov in red) Below are links to all the TV, radio, print and video … Continue reading
No Advertising Please campaign
Tonight the ABC’s 7.30 report will feature an idea I dreamt up six months ago, called ‘No Advertising Please’. Twenty five enthusiastic doctors and health advocates from around Australia have put together a campaign we are proud of. As readers of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged advertising, EBM, evidence, General practice, NAP, pharmaceuticals
2 Comments
Sickies
The delightful Aussie colloquialism ‘sickie’ can describe both the person who is sick, and the time taken off work to allow said sickness to flourish to its full potential. Unfathomably, many employers still require a certificate even for one or … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged humour, medical certificate, Medical Observer, sick note, sickie
5 Comments
Prostate cancer: why screening PSA blood tests are dangerous
Released by NPS MedicineWise today, I host six short videos that discuss why doctors should think twice before ordering the blood test (PSA) that screens for prostate cancer. It sounds like a simple, sensible thing for the GP to do – … Continue reading
Posted in medical education
Tagged cancer, GP, naked doctor, overdiagnosis, prostate, PSA, testing
4 Comments
Health consumers
To consume (v) I have always thought negatively of the word consume. I blame the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), whose first two definitions are; destroy or expend and; spend wastefully. The OED knows both interpretations all too well – no … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged consumer, health, humour, Medical Observer, RACGP, transparency
3 Comments
The waiting game
Fifteen years ago I wrote an article about the waiting room at the Geelong Hospital Emergency Department, noting that a higher proportion of Geelong residents visited it than any other small room in that entire city. Back then it was … Continue reading
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