General Practice Past: Dr. Leslie MacDonald Outridge

Many doctors chose to leave their practice during WWII and sign up for the Australian Army medical corps. Our subject today was one such doctor.

Dr. Leslie MacDonald Outridge was born in Brisbane on the 1st November 1900.  He was a graduate of the University of  Sydney in 1924, and then returned to practice in various locations around Queensland before settling on Gympie to set up his own practice.

Finding Gonorrhoea

Long term followers of this blog will know that here at medical history we enjoy a good story about a sexually transmitted infection.

Normally it's syphilis but today I thought we'd make a side track into gonorrhoea. 

Digitalis - or putting my toddler into heartblock

My family and I have recently moved to a different part of the country and while I wait for the paperwork to go through to start a new job I am getting on with planting a garden in our new home.  I came home with seeds - pansies, sunflowers, violets and foxglove all of which looked very pretty on the packet and was planting them while my toddler enthusiastically "helped" (as toddlers do).

It wasn't until I was about ready to plant and looking at the packet for a second time that a bell started ringing in my head.  I turned it over and sure enough, there in very small print was the warning that foxglove was poisonous if ingested.  With the small tornado enthusiastically eating grass beside me, the seeds were quickly disposed of in the bin.

So what is foxglove, apart from quite pretty?

(public domain image sourced from wikipedia)

General Practice Past: Dr Ettie Lyons

If any of you follow my Facebook or twitter feeds you will know me to be a proud (and recently vocal) General Practitioner.  You will also know that in the last little while my specialty has taken a political beating and I am not the only GP feeling more than a little devalued and questioning my choice of career.

I had been planning and researching this particular series for a while - delayed as always due to a busy life.  I'm bringing it forward for my own purpose - to find inspiration in the amazing doctors who went before me in this remarkable specialty of mine. 

We will start with Dr. Ettie Lyons.