Emergency Measure
Newcastle Herald
Saturday June 23, 2007
A HUNTER initiative will address a critical shortage of general physicians across NSW and Australia that is predicted to get worse.
The nation's ageing population is increasing the demand for general physicians, specialists who are required to treat complex, multi-system and chronic problems.John Attia , academic director of the Department of General Medicine at John Hunter Hospital, said a number of factors had created the shortage, but there was growing recognition of the need to address it.Population projections show nearly a quarter of the Hunter's population will be aged 65 and over by 2026, an age group that already accounts for 38 per cent of hospital admissions and 54 per cent of bed days in the region's acute hospitals.Their medical problems usually involved more than one area of speciality and required a general physician, Dr Attia said."They need a general physician as a diagnostician, to work out which system is causing the problem, and for follow-up care, instead of having to go separately to a gastroenterologist, a respiratory specialist and an endocrinologist, for example," he said.A joint report by the Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand and The Royal Australasian College of Physicians said there was a shortage of between two and five general physicians per 100,000 people across Australia.They predicted that shortage would get worse as general physicians, who were on average five years older than their sub-specialist colleagues, retired.Dr Attia said Hunter New England was well-placed to implement the training program because it was one of the few areas that recognised the importance of general medicine, withdepartments in its major teaching hospitals.As The Herald reported yesterday, Newcastle's Mater Hospital is acutely short of general physicians, but clinicians say that is a funding issue, with people interested in filling positions at the hospital if the money is available.GENERAL PHYSICIANS? A GENERAL physician undertakes specialised training to become qualified to diagnose and treat complex, multi-system and chronic medical problems in adults. They are different to general practitioners, who are family doctors, and they differ from single-system specialists, who focus on a particular discipline, such as cardiology or gastroenterology.
© 2007 Newcastle Herald
