I’m standing in an airport queue after a medical conference, patiently waiting for the bag tag machine, smugly grateful that I checked in on my phone, thus avoiding the line opposite me, five times as long.  Queueing to wait for one’s turn is a concept invented by hungry cavemen, but not perfected until homo erectus reached England. “Gentlemen, we’ve enough mammoth to go round, but you don’t get first dibs on the foretrunk by waving your club. Chisel your name onto this rock (in triplicate) and we’ll grunt for you shortly.”   Thus, the Brits were prepared for the world’s greate ..read more

What I imagine I’d look like if I swung my stethoscope like C.Dundee Dear big-city-GP-job-agency Sir After years living in the remote NT, for my Christmas present I would like to unwrap a new GP job in a place with more than one general store. I believe you call them supermarkets, but even two or three ordinary markets would be fine. Somewhere big. Your job ad optimistically requests a long application letter, yet my CV requires only a single line: I am the best doctor in Australia. No question! However, I guess you might actually have a question. Let me pre-empt it, by starting with my medica ..read more

Justin – Wurrumiyanga 5km finish (17’05”) As the local doctor on a small island, for three years I have struggled to ensure my personal lifestyle choices don’t stray too far from my professional lifestyle advice. Around here, my conduct doesn’t have to pass any pub test with AHPRA or even Twitter—it has to pass the pub test at the pub. When I say a small island, the Tiwis are second only to Tasmania in size, but the population is tiny. With just one person per 300 hectares, you can drive for a couple of hours without seeing a lone soul. Most of the lone souls are at the pub, getting less lonel ..read more

After listening to my most recent podcast on toxicology an anaesthetist friend reflected that his job essentially involves poisoning people with potent toxins. He could have made a fine living as a Royal Poisoner in the Middle Ages, except for his soft spot for administering antidotes towards the end of the operation. Scheming royals traditionally considered that sort of thing a character flaw. The ancients liked their poisons irreversible. Anyone who accidentally woke up in the recovery room was given a pillow, but not in the modern sense. Let’s call it airway management. When Therapeutic Gu ..read more

The wellness industry sells good habits to those who can afford them but don’t need them. Superfoods for super dudes. Turmeric, quinoa and curecumin; so easy to sell, even if hard to spell. Actually, it might be curcumin. Or cumcurin? Not cucumber, which isn’t considered a superfood, despite those sandwiches having kept our Queen alive for longer than any other celebrity. And I bet you Ma’am doesn’t take rhodiola root powder in her Earl Grey. Regardless of spelling, modern society gives the worried-well ample opportunity to get even weller, for a price. Happily for marketers, the wellness sca ..read more

“The bee sting” Virgilio Tojetti 1898 Unlike many colleagues, I have no tales of being inspired to study medicine by my childhood family doctor, mainly due the fact that I didn’t have one. Logic tells me those vaccine syringes didn’t plunge themselves, but I honestly have no memory of ever visiting a doctor. My parents opted for the set-and-forget method for the health care of their many children, recklessly ignoring the danger posed to GP income streams. I’ve met a couple of colleagues who share my doctorless upbringing, but they both had a father who was a GP. Being treated by a parent is ..read more

https://drjustincoleman.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/alcohol_gp_sceptics_final.mp3 (43 mins) GP team Liz Sturgiss and Justin Coleman bring the GP Sceptics podcast back to life, and this time it’s all about alcohol…but not in a good way. Liz leads a Monash University project called REACH — for you, that’s “Reducing alcohol-related harm in General Practice”. As usual, I’m just the guy who asks the dumb questions on your behalf, as you while away your time during coronavirus lockdown. This podcast is all about encouraging behaviour change. The experts in the podcast are Liz herself (you’ll r ..read more

After 2 1/2 years, Dr Justin Coleman finishes as Editor of the Diabetes Management Journal. He will continue to remain involved with the DMJ, as a member of its Editorial Advisory Board. This is his final editorial. Around 100 articles have hit this editor’s desk over the past 2½ years, journeying us through a hundred different aspects of managing diabetes. The desk itself has gone on a journey too, when last year I transported it from Brisbane in the southern half of Australia (yes, check the map) to almost as far north as you can go. The Tiwi Islands just cling on to the nation, counte ..read more

I don’t know how others celebrated International Statistics Day, but I decided to dedicate an entire morning clinic to the cause. If I’m honest, I usually drift into the old habit of seeing each patient as an individual, but for once I made a concerted effort to treat everyone as a statistic. I didn’t want any atypical patients ruining my outcomes, so I worded up my receptionist Joan about who to book in. “Please exclude anyone who has heart failure, doesn’t speak English or is on two or more medications.” She raised a dubious eyebrow. “Oh, and I want them allocated randomly.” Jo ..read more