GP Well Being

General Practitioners are increasingly under pressure to provide quality patient care within a framework of government red tape and reducing business profits. The stress of managing all these pressures at once, while maintaining professional and personal fulfilment, leads many General Practitioners to 'buckle' with increased rates of poor health and suicide.

BDDGP, in acknowledgment of these competing issues and the personal health risk that General Practitioners face, has developed the GP Well Being Program to implement strategies, which will assist individual practitioners. We hope that these strategies will be helpful to you (and your family) and we encourage you to contact us if you have further suggestions on how BDDGP can assist.

The current strategies available to General Practitioners are:

Doctors for Doctors

It is just as important for General Practitioners to have their own GP as it is for any other member of the community. Often assistance is only sought at the time of crisis or serious ill health instead of developing a relationship with a GP to work on preventative and maintenance strategies.

Currently 13 of your colleagues have registered as being willing to provide General Practitioner services to their medical colleagues. If you do not currently have your own GP we encourage you to have a look at the list and make contact with a registered GP or another of your choice. Remember that there are challenges in effectively balancing the "patient" role with your own knowledge and expertise: be open and honest, seek advice and opinions rather than just treating yourself and very importantly - remember to sit on the "right" side of the desk. This service is also being promoted to medical students, hospital based doctors and specialists in our community.

Female GP Network

It is widely acknowledged that female General Practitioners face their own extra set of pressures related to family, lifestyle and cultural working patterns. BDDGP has established the Female GP Network to provide support and promote opportunities for women to get together and explore issues pertinent to their role - and also to have fun!

Personal and Critical Incident Counselling

Counselling can help to relieve pressure and assist in identifying self management strategies for ongoing mental health - don't be shy about considering this strategy as a valuable tool to maintain your own health and wellbeing. BDDGP is able to offer 3 subsidised psychologist counselling visits per annum to assist you with the cost of accessing these services. Each General Practitioner may choose their own psychologist - a list of Ballarat Psychologists is available - if you would like to access a psychologist outside of Ballarat this is also okay. Three tokens for counselling were including in your GP Well Being kit - you must ensure that your psychologist of choice sends one token with each invoice. The token system was chosen to ensure your privacy whilst meeting financial accountability requirements. Additional tokens will be issued at the commencement of each calendar year.

GP Well Being CPD Conference

More information on the conference will be circulated later in the year.

We hope that this GP Well Being Program, as an integral part of BDDGP activity, will grow in strength and value, with suggestions from members.