Hospital Practice.

Even when I was a small boy, I wanted to be a doctor.

My dad, radiographer at a Regional Base Hospital, brought the smell of the hospital with him every night - a complex aroma of the cleanliness of the hospital wards and the chemicals of the dark room.

His friends, the doctors he worked with, were, to me, larger-than-life heroes.

I don’t think I craved their status, which, after all, wasn’t all that evident on the many social occasions that I had contact with them, but their aura of omnipotence was heady and addictive. 

To me, they were gods who spent their lives in the noble pursuit of healing, conquering fear, defeating disease, relieving pain and suffering and distress, and restoring life and hope and happiness.

 I wanted to be just like them.

In those days, doctors’ income was about on a par with headmasters and bank managers. 
Their kids went to the local public schools. They lived in ordinary houses and drove ordinary cars. 

Doctors worked at the local Base Hospital as Honorary Medical Officers, providing their care and services to public patients on an honorary (free) basis. 
In their private practices, fees were based on ability to pay, and often waived. This was all totally unremarkable - part of the job of being a doctor, and a source of satisfaction and pride. 

The sincere gratitude of patients, now so often absent in the commercial business of the doctor-patient transaction, was far more rewarding than the soulless deal of the exchange of money.

I graduated in Medicine in 1969, and after five years at a major metropolitan hospital, I spent six years in private group practice in a major regional centre, then twenty years in private solo practice in a small country town.

But, to me, private medical practice always seemed a bit like prostitution. 
A significant proportion of patients fitted into the "worried well" category, seeking reassurance for their trivial symptoms (“It’s not cancer, is it doc?” “No, it’s tinea.”)

Patients’ gratitude seemed to be tempered by doubt: was their doctor motivated by a desire to help them or by a love of money? 

In 2001, I finally resolved this dilemma for everyone, and returned to public hospital practice where I found that I had finally achieved my goal - treating patients who were actually ill - free from any economic considerations.