I have always been a little surprised to find that consultation models aren’t widely taught in Australian general practice. I always found it quite useful to have a range of ways of looking at the complex interactions between myself and the patient, ways of getting myself unstuck when a purely medical approach didn’t seem to be paying dividends.
I’m not sure why the models haven’t caught on in Australia. It may be that they don’t take root in a medical system that prizes procedures over cognition. GPs here are a proud bunch, often under-appreciated by specialist colleagues and politicians alike. Consultation models are easily dismissed as an …