Thoughts, fact sheet and links
Some thoughts and ideas – some for inspiration and some for personal reflection. Please seek medical advice from your own GP.
Amsterdam
There has been a noticeable drop in temperature in Amsterdam. Nice to escape the heat of the European heatwave for a couple of days. Amsterdam has been my favourite city this trip. For me it had it all: the beautiful cobblestone streets, the UNESCO protected buildings with all of the history, the museums and the…
Paris…
My time in Paris is a bit more business than fun, arriving for the WONCA 26 conference, which is the international conference for GPs. I did manage to sneak in a morning water colour painting tour, which was a great introduction to the city in the beautiful Luxembourg garden. WONCA is not a conference all…
Milano heatwave
My final days in Italy were spent back in Milano. I had a great little Airbnb which was an old monastery complete with an ancient key for the door that needed to be turned six times to lock. The weather was hot, so it was strictly morning sightseeing and rest in the afternoons. I enjoyed…
Venice
Venice is a city to get lost in. I had a few things on the list – the Peggy Guggenheim museum and a little bookshop with a staircase made of books, but mostly I wandered the maze of streets and side alleys along the canals and found little shops to explore and small museums and…
Walking the Amalfi Coast
I have spent the last eight days staying at an Agiturismo in San Lazzaro with an Explore tour group of incredible people. This beautiful farm was our base as we set off each day, walking the tracks and roads of the Amalfi coast. Our guide, Gennaro took us up stairs, along cliff tops, through forests.…
Milano to Rome
My European adventure has started in Milano. The arrival was early which made clearing customs a breeze, but did land me in peak hour on the train which set off my first regret of having a bag packed to the brim as I crammed into a seat on the train as people were trying to…
The start of the journey … Bulla!
Over the next few months I am doing something I have limited experience doing, solo travel. I have travelled a bit for work over the years and an occasional holiday, but this time I am setting off to tick off some things on my bucket list with some serious time away. I find it hard…
Saying goodbye to an incredible team
Last week I said farewell to my role at the AMA ACT and reflected on the experience that this has been. The part that I have loved the most was the connection with my colleagues. The daily reason to try to do better for our profession and our patients. Medicine is a team sport. There…
Payroll tax and why it matters in General Practice
In the last few months I have spoken a great deal about payroll tax. Why is it an issue for General Practices? The answer is financial viability. Most GPs are contractors. Traditionally the payments to GPs from patients have been exempt from payroll tax. A new application of the law means that these payments will…
Exercise as self care
I used to roll my eyes when people talked about their run being ‘their time’. My love-hate relationship with exercise is not something that magically disappeared the first time I put on my running shoes and finished a run. If there has been a gap in consistency I always find it hard to get back…
Feeling (un)social
I am really enjoying podcasts at the moment. I like to listen to them when I am driving to work each day, as a nice break from the news and the forecast for more cold weather when I crave sunshine. I have recently been listening to Dan Harris on his Ten Percent Happier podcast which…
Launching back into exercise
How do I start exercising? We could say ‘just do it’…. but if you have any underlying health conditions please see your GP to discuss starting safely. The best thing about exercise? There are lots of things that you can do without load of equipment, gyms, trainers or money. If you struggle for inspiration print…
Vaccines and consent
Consenting to a treatment, a procedure or a vaccine is a process of weighing up both the risks and benefits of the treatment (be it a vaccine, a surgical procedure, a new medication) and the risks and benefits of not having the treatment. For some treatments this might be a really easy discussion. I have…
Climate change and health
A few weeks ago we had family powerpoint night. Yep, powerpoint night. Five slides, five minutes each with the theme of Climate Change and our home. Each member of the family presented on a topic – transport, fashion, food, power, water and waste. We listened, we laughed a lot. We ate snacks. At the end…
Exercise and our minds
This one is a personal story about change. One morning, about 15 years ago, I was driving into the city and stopped at the red light. I looked over at the car next to me and there was a woman with a huge smile on her face, a number on her arm and a bike…
Making change
The truth is, change is hard. We accumulate knowledge and patterns of behaviour over time (for some of us it can be decades), and reality is that it takes time for change to occur. I was listening to the Brene Brown podcast, Unlocking us, and her interview with the amazing Marc Brackett. As they talked…
Mental health in the medical profession
Sometimes it is hard for us to remember that we are human, and prone to the same mental health challenges that anyone else in the community might face. We are lucky to have colleagues who are willing to share some of their personal experiences dealing with both their own mental health and that of their…
Pandemic and Social Distancing, Quarantine and Mental Health
I assumed that my first post was going to be about one of my passions – starting to lose weight, ways to manage anxiety, adding more exercise into your day. Instead, I find myself thinking about how we manage the COVID-19 outbreak in our community. I understand there is a high level of anxiety, there…
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Dr Kerrie Aust 