VICDOC Autumn 2023 - Magazine - Page 63
I N M Y OPI N I O N — D R RAY McHE NRY
DOCS
DON’T
CHARGE
DOCS
DO YOU HAVE A
DIFFERENT VIEW?
WE WELCOME OPINION
PIECES FROM AMA
VICTORIA MEMBERS.
EMAIL: TARYN SHEEHY
was 18 years old and in my first year
of medicine at Monash, 1966. I was
the oldest of five children living in a
small three bedroom house off North Road
about halfway between the Huntingdale
station and the Clayton campus. Many
Monash graduates of my era will be
familiar with this area. Dad was a
concrete contractor.
Money was very tight and visits to the
family doctor occurred only in the most
extreme of circumstances.
It was my third attack of abdominal
pain. The previous two had been written
off as food poisoning or gastro. Dad, a
veteran of the siege of Tobruk and the
jungles of Borneo in the Second World
War considered all forms of illness as
weakness. Certainly nothing to go to
the doctor about!
This attack was worse. Dad wasn’t home
and mum was worried and rang for an
appointment with our family doctor. There
was one appointment left at 6:30 PM.
There was no car and no easy way of
getting to the surgery which was near the
corner of North Road and Warrigal Road
in Oakleigh.
There was nothing else to do but catch
the North Road bus for the 20 minute trip
to see the GP, not a pleasant journey with
every jolt of the old bus exacerbating the
pain on my right side.
He made the diagnosis as I walked in the
door, obviously appendicitis. I’d only met
him once the year before and he was aware
I was a now a medical student.
He rang and arranged for an ambulance
to take me to the Alfred Hospital.
A doctor’s fee in those days, prior to
Medicare, was a significant proportion of
a tradesperson’s weekly income. I politely
asked if he could send the account to
my father.
That’s when he uttered these exact
words which are as clear to me today as
they were to me as an 18-year-old first
year medical student.
“Docs don’t charge docs.”
It’s a principle I’ve always practised
throughout my career as do most of
our colleagues.
However, both anecdotally and
personally, I am aware of a gradual
breakdown of this collegiate approach
to billing our colleagues.
I hope this small anecdote may give
pause to think when considering charging
out-of-pocket fees to a colleague or their
immediate family.
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