Diagnostic modelling in General Practice – John Murtagh
John Murtagh
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
Prof. John Murtagh
BSc, BEd (Melb), MBBS, MD, DipObst
(RCOG), FRACGP, AM
Emeritus Professor, Monash University
Professorial Fellow, University of
Melbourne
Prof. John Murtagh is the author of several internationally adopted textbooks including General
Practice, Practice Tips, Patient Education and Cautionary Tales. Murtagh’s General Practice
has been translated into eleven languages and has been adopted by the Russian and Chinese
Ministries of Health. In 1995, he was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia for services
to medical education, research and publishing. He practices part-time in General Practice and
currently has teaching responsibilities at three universities in addition to conducting national
workshops for registrars in the General Practice Training Program.
Prof. John Murtagh
Introduction
All facets of the great profession of medicine are fascinating and that is basically the reason why I pursued a career in General Practice. It provides the opportunity to diagnose and manage diseases from A-Z (acne to zoonoses). Practising in a rural community, with the luxury of managing the local hospital, was the ideal environment for my interests and consequently I entered rural practice in partnership with my wife, Dr Jill Rosenblatt in 1969. As the only practitioners in the community of Neerim South we enjoyed considerable responsibility especially with the management of emergencies. The discipline of General Practice, however, is one of the most difficult and challenging of all the healing arts. General Practitioners are at the front line of patient care and have to manage presenting problems as they appear at any time and place.