Hi Ariel

You are very lucky to have a good GP who puts your health ahead of his/her own self interests. Unfortunately, 6min medicine has become entrenched in this country. Anything that requires a bit of thinking, or ‘research’, is put in the too hard basket and palmed off to someone else (and have to wait months to see) … next patient please … here’s an antibiotic script for your runny nose and another repeat of Ritalin for little Johnny … next patient please …

This is a gross generalisation … there are good GPs out there, but unfortunately they are in the minority. I would like to ask the majority, to look at themselves in the mirror tonight when they are brushing their teeth … and ask themselves, what happened to that bright eyed med student who went around ad nauseam telling everyone how many thousands of patients they were going to cure … well, here’s your chance … and, in the main … you’re asleep at the wheel.

HI CJ

Glad you liked it … unfortunately, it’s too true …

You couldn’t do any better than that.

Hi Ariel

You have certainly found a good GP. When I grew up, my doctors were like that … It was a different era.

By far the best doctor I’ve had is the neurosurgeon who did an emergency operation on me and saved my life … very, very lucky … to get the best neurosurgeon at the time who just happened to being doing his ward rounds when the ambulance took me to hospital.

In my initial appointments with him after getting out of hospital, he took the time to get to know what made me tick, got down to my level, and progressively switched my focus from the negative to the positive. He made me feel like his miracle patient who survived against all the odds and, since I’ve made it this far so quickly, there’s nothing stopping me from achieving anything that I wanted … but I had to want to do it. He simply gave me the power of positive thinking.

It worked a treat. When I was in rehab, I witnessed others with less severe injuries than me, with negative attitudes and feeling sorry for themselves, plod along and not seem to make much progress. On the other hand, I was looking forward to my next appointment with my neurosurgeon to tell him about the latest milestone that I had achieved. He used to sit back with a big smile on his face, listen to what I had to say, and then make me feel like I was one in a million & encourage me to keep on pushing myself. Looking back, I realise now that he was the one in a million. I was just one of his patients.

Hi Pat

Copy the above “fixhepc.com” cartoon and send it into your local newspaper with a letter to the editor advising all and sundry that there is excellent support available for the 44 patients available at fixhepc.com. No need to travel to the big smoke or make unnecessary appointments with the local GP (and wait 1hr in the waiting room before he/she sees you). They’ll only need to see their GP a couple of times to get some bloods done.

BTW, GPs are in for a rude shock once online consults become medicare rebatable …

Just being cheeky.