Greetings from a medical locum

[BruceD1beach]

I've been doctoring for 36 years and have worked all over Australia and overseas (Graduated from Uni of Queensland). I've loved flying since the TAA days. Currently I'm Platinum One and just love flying Qantas. I've looked at this website for years and got a few helpful tips from it - thanks for that. I really dislike flying overnight in economy or even premium economy. Economy during the day is fine - maybe up to 9 hours. I've been experimenting with flying economy to Jakarta - there is a decent hotel at the airport and then using points for flights from there - there is a large number of reward seats in all classes. Anyway - hello.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Welcome to AFF.

 

[TomVexille]

Welcome aboard!

 

[Quickstatus]

Welcome aboard !

 

[Steady]

Welcome aboard BruceD1beach

 

[drron]

Welcome from another locum but in my 50th year of doctoring.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

Hi @BruceD1beach and welcome to the AFF community. Also welcome to the P1 club

 

[JohnK]

Welcome to AFF @BruceD1beach.

 

[BruceD1beach]

Welcome from another locum but in my 50th year of doctoring.

Wow - I'm impressed. An English Psychiatrist working in rural Queensland once told me that under the UK NHS, doctors were allowed to retire after 40 years of work - the exception apparently being Psychiatrists who could retire after 30 years. He was a young guy. Unfortunately he died in a plane crash on a flight from Toowoomba to my town of Goondiwindi. It was a single engine plane on a cold day and the engine failed soon after take-off. It killed him + a psych Registrar + a psych nurse + a psychologist + the pilot - devastating!!

When I was an intern in 1984 I spoke with an elderly surgeon who had graduated from Melbourne in 1929 (there was no med school in Queensland then). He said physicians just helped people die. Death was common. Lots of children died. Young men died of pneumonia etc. He became a surgeon because surgeons could actually save people. He witnessed the beginnings of antibiotic usage and a phase where people thought doctors were Gods - they remembered family members who died of similar things that doctors were now curing. Things have just graduated deteriorated where a lot of young doctors are miserable because they get complaints about the most trivial things - you and I have seen a lot of changes in our profession haven't we - you more than me.

Australian towns had a tradition of doctors who lived their entire lives in those towns - often by themselves. That person for Goondiwindi was Dr Alec Chalmers - he practiced in Gundy for over 50 years and was revered - he could do no wrong. I could tell lots of stories about him. He'd use a reusable needle with an eye. He'd buy fishing line and suture lacerations using the fishing line. When patients asked how much to pay, he'd say " don't bother - it was just 18 inches of fishing line". He literally had a draw of cheques which he never presented - just wasn't interested in money. When his wife said they owed something he'd pull out a random cheque which could be several years old and use that.

 

[dajop]

I've been experimenting with flying economy to Jakarta - there is a decent hotel at the airport and then using points for flights from there - there is a large number of reward seats in all classes.

BruceD1beach, welcome to AFF, lots to learn, and hopefully for you to share some experiences with us too.

Jakarta is not a bad place to begin tickets from - and it's not just rewards seats, you can often get good business class deals from there too (eg $2300 AUD return to Europe).

 

[drron]

Yes Bruce rural practioners of old were an amazing bunch.I moved to the Sunshine Coast 27 years ago.
One of the surgeons used to fly to Gundy regularly to operate.
One of the GPs in Buderim had worked in Gundy for a long time before semi retiring to the Coast.He was the one with the famous QLD coughtail for constipation.

As well as my practice I did MSOAP visits to the North Burnett region every fortnight so got to know a couple of those older docs.One was well into his 70s.Wanted to retire but couldn't get anyone to take over his practice.On one of my visits I met him in the hospital and he really looked tired.I asked after his health and he just replied that he couldn't get to sleep last night.After he left the nurse said that was because there was a high speed head on last night on the highway.First he had to put in an IC catheter for the fellow with a tension pneumothorax.Then he did Burr holes on the fellow with a subdural-he diagnosed it clinically.As he was about to leave the one other person in the crash suddenly deteriorated.Again he diagnosed a ruptured spleen,only radiology available were plain films, so he then removed it.I doubt there was another doctor in QLD who could have done all that.

 

[BruceD1beach]

Yes Bruce rural practioners of old were an amazing bunch.I moved to the Sunshine Coast 27 years ago.
One of the surgeons used to fly to Gundy regularly to operate.
One of the GPs in Buderim had worked in Gundy for a long time before semi retiring to the Coast.He was the one with the famous QLD coughtail for constipation.

As well as my practice I did MSOAP visits to the North Burnett region every fortnight so got to know a couple of those older docs.One was well into his 70s.Wanted to retire but couldn't get anyone to take over his practice.On one of my visits I met him in the hospital and he really looked tired.I asked after his health and he just replied that he couldn't get to sleep last night.After he left the nurse said that was because there was a high speed head on last night on the highway.First he had to put in an IC catheter for the fellow with a tension pneumothorax.Then he did Burr holes on the fellow with a subdural-he diagnosed it clinically.As he was about to leave the one other person in the crash suddenly deteriorated.Again he diagnosed a ruptured spleen,only radiology available were plain films, so he then removed it.I doubt there was another doctor in QLD who could have done all that.

Actually I know the 2 doctors you mention. I bought Garry Shaw's practice in 1988. The actual practice had started just after WW2 and Garry was the 3rd doctor in it. I was the 4th. I built it up to a massive building with 12 doctors - look at Goondiwindi Medical Centre Home - the original surgery is the tiny little wooden building on the right corner. I was there for 22 years. The surgeon is Bill Lindsay - he'd come every 2 weeks and I gave a lot of the general anaesthetics for him. In the change-over week in 1988, Garry's son, Ian had just been accepted into medicine. I asked if he'd be interested in assisting me at a Caesarean I was doing that morning - so he's now a famous surgeon - Home | Dr Ian Shaw | Ian Shaw Medical | Brisbane, Australia and he did his first operation with me before he was even a medical student.

 

[drron]

It is a small world.Garry was a very good doctor.

 

[BruceD1beach]

It is a small world.Garry was a very good doctor.

He really was. As you would know, his brother, Keith was one of the founders of the RACGP - I met Keith when he did a few locums in Gundy. His practice was in Kingaroy. In the 1980's there were 3 doctors in Gundy looking after the 5000 people in town plus another 10,000 who lived midway to the nearest towns - Moree to the south, St. George to the west, Inglewood to the east and Miles to the north. I personally would have 30 in-patients and see over 40 outpatients per day as well as being on call 24 hours a day. I also did burr holes, emergency laparotomies, IC tubes etc. When I hear about the "stress" that young doctors have in their 36 hour work weeks I think to myself "you guys have no idea". When I went to Gundy, doctors were expected to deliver babies, do forceps deliveries, do Caesareans, reduce fractures, do appendicectomies, give anaesthetics etc. etc. If you had an MBBS you were expected to do everything. It's frustrating that everything now needs accreditation - it's so difficult for a young doctor to be a generalist. To be honest, that's why I get so many offers for locums all over Australia - because I have the Advanced diploma of Obstetrics and can do all the things we were trained to do. (Every day I'd get emails from about 6 locum agencies with offers for many dozens of locations). I really wonder what is going to happen when doctors like you and me stop working.

 

[k_sheep]

I chose my specialty poorly for locuming! Pathology. Minimal opportunities there. But at least, minimal patients, ick!

 

[BruceD1beach]

The best investment I ever made was in a pathology lab. It was in the early 1990's and Sullivan and Nicholaides in Brisbane wanted an investor to buy off the plan the lab on the ground floor of the Sandford Jackson building at the Wesley Hospital. I don't know if you know Brisbane but it serves the wealthy western suburbs and the Wesley is probably it's premier hospital. I was a humble GP from Goondiwindi and I negotiated with S&N, the builders, the bank and the Wesley board. I picked 5 of the best car parks and at one stage was bullied by a lawyer who wanted my car parks - I knew he was bluffing and didn't back down. I figured that if a pathology lab at one of the best private hospitals went broke we would all be broke and that has proven to be correct.

 

[JohnK]

@BruceD1beach, @drron it's great reading your stories from the past.

 

[k_sheep]

The best investment I ever made was in a pathology lab. It was in the early 1990's and Sullivan and Nicholaides in Brisbane wanted an investor to buy off the plan the lab on the ground floor of the Sandford Jackson building at the Wesley Hospital. I don't know if you know Brisbane but it serves the wealthy western suburbs a.....

Indeed I have performed many a frozen section in that very lab as a student and trainee.

I'm such a chicken with investments! Can't imagine doing something like that.

 

[BruceD1beach]

Indeed I have performed many a frozen section in that very lab as a student and trainee.

I'm such a chicken with investments! Can't imagine doing something like that.

Amazing. The supervising pathologist there was Bev Rowbotham. When it was still a vacant block of land I negotiated with the senior partner - I forget his name. Apparently he developed epigastric pain during his daughter's wedding and was subsequently diagnosed with aggressive gastric cancer. He asked me what return I was looking for and I said 9% - he couldn't get the paperwork to me fast enough - he was really happy with that. On the ground floor are the cafe, QML, the hyperbaric unit and the S&N lab. You've probably parked in one of the 5 carparks that I picked out. It was explained to me that outgoing partners wanted values as high as possible and incoming partners wanted them as low as possible and so the solution was to get an investor to buy and then lease from them. I was also offered an upstairs unit for $250,000 for an Orthopaedic Surgeon who wanted to lease - but I just couldn't stretch my borrowings.

 

[k_sheep]

Love Bev. And John Musgrave is the gentleman you're thinking of.

Small world!