Dr Anne Malatt

We all have blind spots in our fields of vision, that can be mapped. This is a known fact in Medicine. What is not so well known or accepted is that we as doctors also have blind spots, not just in our visual fields but in our perceptions of life, that are influenced by our beliefs and ideals.

I recently read an article (1) suggesting that sitting is satisfying, for doctors and for patients. The article stated that: “Sitting at a patient's bedside is one of the...

I am currently ill, and far from feeling frustrated or upset about it, I see this illness is an offering, not a punishment.

I attended a function last night in the town where I live and work, at which we hosted our young doctors and talked to them about life as a...

What do we mean when we say that medicine is a ‘calling’? And what implications does that have for the way we practice medicine and the way we live our lives?

The thing I have come to learn about music is that it is first and foremost a vibration, that is felt in the body. We think we are listening to something with our ears, and we are, but we are primarily resonating with the vibration of it and it can literally change the way we feel.

Medicine is an apprenticeship system and like all such systems, works best if the masters train their apprentices not just in a functional way, but with a deep level of care, as people and as colleagues. We now call this process mentoring.

Medicine is all about relationships. It is about caring for people, after all. So why do we place so little focus on this vital element of our profession?

We all know the harms of smoking and in fact there is nothing healing about it, so why do doctors smoke?

We don’t talk about it in Medicine much, when we lose someone we love. Doctors are no strangers to death and as part of our training, we are taught to toughen up, take things in our stride and become seemingly inured to death.