I am perturbed whenever a professional colleague dies suddenly. It saddens me when I hear the bad news. I do not consider myself a hypochondriac; and I always believe that one should practise what one preaches. If we are practising Family Medicine and trying to groom our next generation of Family Physicians, we should start from within ourselves.

According to Professor Robin Fraser, every complaint from our patients should be considered in three aspects: physical, social and psychological - the "Triple Diagnosis". We may not fully agree with this but it is important. For physical symptoms from our own body, I would say that we could make our own diagnosis most of the time, without consulting another colleague. But I really worry about the other two areas which can be badly or deliberately neglected and mismanaged by ourselves ALONE.

How many of us are making self-diagnoses and giving ourselves treatment without telling any other person, be it our spouses, relatives or friends? (Forget the Doctor!) How many of us are taking sleeping pills, anti-depressants, smoking, drinking heavily? I believe that doctors are no different from their patients. Perhaps some of us are also having financial hardship due to bad investments, worry about job security (especially those with contract employment), or even are hard-pressed by their girl friends/mistresses to divorce their wives!

Turning to the more practical issue of health, are we looking after our own health as well as we are looking after our patients? We all age and we all face the inevitable. So who should advise us, and when, regarding our own health screening? Should we stop, especially those in private practice, from grabbing medicines straight from our own pharmacy without a prescription and without a record? Yes, it would be embarrassing if we were to ask our colleagues to prescribe Viagra for our own use. But this is exactly the point which I want our friends to realise - it protects you from committing yourself to unnecessary risks in self-medication.

I have mentioned privately between friends that we should start a "Health Club" for our members and advocate this among our profession. However, it seems no one is showing much interest, or perhaps they are all too busy. I would like our next crop of Family Physicians to start thinking about this issue and do something!

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