Remove the tooth, but don't stop the warfarin.

BACKGROUND: Dentists rely on general practitioners to manage a patient's warfarin dose before uncomplicated dental extraction. OBJECTIVE: This article compares common practice of warfarin management with the available clinical evidence. DISCUSSION: Common practice lags more than 20 years behind clinical evidence to the detriment of patients, and with medicolegal consequences for doctors.

Educating the good GP--the 33rd William Arnold Conolly Oration.

'Special training is required for doctors in general practice and this was, and is, the main aim and objective of this college and we resent any suggestion that standards in general practice should be any different from the standards in other branches of medicine'. Dr Mony Kent-Hughes.

The tasks of general practice. A new kind of GP?

BACKGROUND: The Department of Health and Aging is driving a reform of general practice to encompass primary care and population health. Although these new ideas are quite old they have rarely been comprehensively applied. OBJECTIVE: To develop an up-to-date conceptual framework of the comprehensive tasks of general practice. DISCUSSION: This framework can help the 'new kind of general practitioner' (and those in training) in deciding which elements of the 'new primary health care' they can, or will, encompass.

Dr. William Theodore Hodge: pioneer surgeon-apothecary in early-twentieth-century Western Australia.

In 2008 I chanced upon the lonely grave of Dr. William Theodore Hodge, buried in 1934, in the Derby Pioneer and Aboriginal Cemetery. He turned out to be the founding doctor of the practice in which I have worked for the past thirty years. Dr. Hodge migrated from England in 1896. He was the first western trained doctor to work in the Perth suburb of Claremont and in the wheat-belt town of Kellerberrin. He was an innovative and inventive modern doctor who became a legend in the Kimberley where he died tragically, on the day prior to his retirement, at the age of seventy-five. His story is illustrative of the life and medical practice of a pioneering doctor in metropolitan, rural, and remote practice in Western Australia at the end of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth centuries.

The repeating history of objections to the fortification of bread and alcohol: from iron filings to folic acid.

The fortification of staple foods has eliminated many deficiency diseases. Despite this, "tampering" with people's food always provokes opposition, much of it from health professionals. Opposition is often based on self-interest, tunnel vision and theory rather than research. A historical perspective of the patterns of objections to fortification and its outcomes may help resolve the anxieties and opposing ethical positions of advocates and opponents of fortification.

A patience of professors.

The 1973 inquiry into the "Expansion of Medical Education in Australia" resulted in the appointment of nine professors of "Community Practice". We (the foundation professors) have been leaders in a reform movement within medical schools and general practice and have had to fight hard for the right and resources to do the job for which we were appointed. Our most significant accomplishment has been to broaden the orientation of medical education beyond hospitals and laboratories to the community and those in the community who are underserved. Although small in numbers, our discipline fights above its weight and is essential for medical school accreditation by the Australian Medical Council.

Medical career choice and practice location: early factors predicting course completion, career choice and practice location.

AIMS: The overall aim of the study was to identify the factors that best predict medical career choice and practice location. METHOD: A longitudinal, cohort study was conducted. This followed 2 cohorts of students, numbering a total of 229 students, who commenced medical studies at the University of Western Australia in 1984 and 1989. Data concerning the students' sociodemographic backgrounds, admission scores and personality characteristics were collected in Year 1. Regression analyses were performed to identify the student characteristics that best predicted course completion, a choice of general practice 4 years after graduation and a rural location of practice. OUTCOMES: We found that students who had lower university admission scores and who were less outgoing were less likely to complete the course. Students who were male, had a father in medicine and were more creative and abstract in their thinking and more conscientious and rule-bound were more likely to choose a specialist career. A rural background was found to be the most important predictor of both rural general and specialist practice.