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Recent Posts
- 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
- With Obamacare gone, how will Trumpcare affect US health?
Category Archives: medical writing
GP’s pocket guide to the partialists
As a career generalist, it’s easy to forget that many friends from med school – even some of the smarter ones – chose to limit themselves to just one organ. Medicine is a broad church, and every church needs an … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged Flippant, GP, humour, Medical Observer, partialists, specialists
4 Comments
How Melbourne Uni survived 20 years without me
As I walked through the grounds of Melbourne University last week—my first time for twenty years—I decided to dedicate this column to medical students. I felt poignantly nostalgic about my own experiences, and also judged it an opportunity for a … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged Flippant, humour, Medical Observer, medical student, University of Melbourne
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GPs Down Under
I GPDU; do U? If that sentence makes any sense, you’re probably already a member of the Facebook group GPs Down Under. And a good interpreter of poor syntax. It’s the only phrase I’ve ever written which has been turned … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged #FOAM4GP, facebook, Flippant, GP, GPDU, Medical Observer
7 Comments
e-vapes, e-health and e-xperts
IT’S NOT often I start a column with a direct Hansard quote, but South Australian Liberal senator Anne Ruston provided pure gold during last month’s budget estimates hearing on NEHTA’s e-health. The National e-Health Transition Authority is tasked with creating … Continue reading
When a GP goes to his GP
I went to my GP this year. Apparently patients do that sort of thing all the time, but it felt odd, giving over the swivel chair. I hadn’t realised the degree of power inferred by a collared shirt and castor … Continue reading
Winter; discontent; you know the drill.
Winter is coming As any Game of Thrones character will tell you – and most eventually do – winter is coming. In the land of general practice, a long way from the nearest fur-coated dwarf or icicled king, we instead … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged Flippant, game of thrones, GP, humour, Medical Observer, winter
4 Comments
Weird diagnoses your doctor can select, but probably shouldn’t
Has your doctor has ever diagnosed you with Hair in the Urine or Donald Duck Speech? I’m a doctor and have no idea how to treat either condition. My wild guess might be a sieve and a good gargle—in that … Continue reading
Small things I don’t understand
Last month’s column was ‘Dealing with uncertainty’, and I haven’t got any better at it, so figured I’d stick to the theme. Might even make it a series. This month’s uncertainty involved a haematologist—I’ve never actually met one, but that … Continue reading
Posted in medical writing
Tagged blood cells, Flippant, humour, Medical Observer, uncertainty
2 Comments
Uncertain dealings
My GP registrar’s body language suggested the tute was going poorly, although I blamed the topic: ‘Dealing with uncertainty’. In retrospect, I could have stuck to medical examples, instead of opening with Gandalf’s dilemma about when best to attack Sauron. … Continue reading
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
drjustincoleman 