21/08/2026
Last night, DHASWA’s Dr Helen Wilcox and Dr Sarah Newman joined interstate Doctors' Health Alliance colleagues, Dr Patrick Johnson and Dr Margaret Kay for a practical conversation about something that can feel surprisingly complicated: what changes when the patient sitting in front of you is also a doctor?
One of my key takeaways from the evening was:
Doctors don’t need different care. They need deliberate care.
As clinicians, we already have the skills we need to care well for our doctor-patients. But professional familiarity, blurred social boundaries and concerns about confidentiality or mandatory reporting can impact the consultation dynamic.
Through the story of Sam, a registrar presenting overwhelmed, exhausted and struggling to cope, the panel explored what can happen when a consultation gets knocked off its usual tracks — and what helps bring it back.
What emerged was less about doing something different, and more about doing the usual things deliberately: make time, establish trust, use your usual clinical framework, ask the difficult questions, be clear about boundaries and prescribing, document well, make an explicit follow-up plan and, importantly, allow the doctor in front of you to simply be the patient.
Another thing I found quite reassuring was that good care doesn’t mean getting everything right or addressing all concerns and issues in one consultation. It can be enough to attend to what needs attention today, create a clear plan for the next steps and make it easy for them to come back.
Thank you to everyone who joined the webinar, contributed questions and to the speakers and panel. The discussions were thoughtful and practical.
We’re looking forward to putting on more education and training — and to making it easier for every doctor and medical student to access the care they need.
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With kindness,
Dr Rikki Priest
Director of Training and Education
