Hamish Sick at Home.

Today Hamish is home with me.

He has been sick for about 36 hours.

He has symptoms of mild fever, sore throat, poor sleep, all being worse at night.

He has been seeking water, and panadol definitely makes it better.

The last time he was sick was roughly 2 years ago, and I consulted with him sitting in my GP room.

He did pretty well with a phone and a box of tissues and my patients actually seemed to appreciate meeting him and knowing I have kids.

But today, luckily, I can work from home and he is just sitting quietly watching people play games on youtube.

However, the question did come this from my wife…

Perhaps, if we had had an RDO for him last week, then he would not be sick.

Just taking some time out of school, even though he was not sick may have recharged his batteries and protected him against this illness.

We could have gone to the beach, explored the rock pools, had a picnic or hung out at home and done gardening…

It sounds like a pretty good day for my family!

The continued rhetoric from school is that the kids must attend all days.

However, taking a day out to bond with my kids may have not only prevented him from getting sick but also increased the connection between my kids and myself — a very valuable thing in my opinion.

So the question I am forced to confront is…

Does tradition still work?

As a society, we have never been through anything like our current times.

There has been the more technological change in the last 10 years than in the last 10,000+ years.

It is a time of chaos, and beliefs that might have been completely appropriate for the 19th and 20th Century must now be questioned.

Do they actually work for my family? Do they work for me?

If not, then creating new belief systems is an entirely appropriate course of action.

If you are operating with unquestioned belief systems in medicine, then I invite you to have a close look at these.

Are you working with a model of General Practice that was completely appropriate in the 1970s and ’80s but is now found to be inadequate in the face of Google medicine and an ever exploding amount of medical information?

If these mindsets are leaving you burnt out, disheartened and suffering, then I invite you to head over to graduatemedicine.com to check out the power of Key Feature General Practice.

And… hopefully, Hamish makes a full recovery and is well again very soon!