Executive Summary Introduction

So here I am in the blogsphere at last. I've been ignoring it for years. So why here, why now? The reason is simple. Having sent a few well formulated letters to the editor and been resoundingly ignored I resolved to put up or shut up and a blog became the logical choice.

The key questions are of course: what do I have to say, and why would anyone bother to read it? Executive summaries are good if you're busy, so here it is: The only reason for reading this blog is if you have an interest in Australian medicine, what is currently really wrong with the system, what is about to go wrong, and how some of these issues might realistically be addressed.

So putting as many keywords into a sentence as I can this blog will cover: bed block, access block, Medicare, Nicola Roxon, Kevin Rudd, health policy, health bureaucracy, 2020 summit, the future of medical education, AMA, IMG, OTD, foreign trained doctors, rural health, aboriginal health, elective surgery waiting lists, quality standards, clinical protocols, healthy lifestyle, research, general practice, specialists, and procedural skills.

Disclosure: I am not (permanently) employed by a public hospital, nor do I have a political affiliation although most of my acquaintances put me only slightly to the left of Ghengis Khan. I work at the coal face of modern medicine in various DEM (Department of Emergency Medicine) and as a locum both in the city and in remote rural areas. I graduated from medicine many years ago and have been around the traps. I believe in calling a spade a spade not a carbon neutral, ergonomically designed, environmentally friendly digging implement. Without an editor to soften the wording expect a warts and all viewpoint. If you are looking for a sugar coated reality you are definitely in the wrong place.