Louise Stone, Founder
In General Practice, we have a rich tradition of workplace learning. We remember and value our mentors and supervisors, and we rely on our colleagues for support and ongoing learning.
However, General Practice can be challenging, especially in the first five years after Fellowship, when you move away from the learning community you established as a registrar and try to shape your own career.
There is a rich tradition of clinical supervision in some disciplines, such as psychology and social work, but in General Practice, we tend to learn in peer groups or informally among friends. For me, this was not enough. As a GP with an interest in mental health, I remember feeling overwhelmed, and I was worried that my own anxiety would reduce my effectiveness as a clinician. Since then, I have continued to seek learning in groups and through formal and informal learning.
Perhaps one of the most critical ways that I have preserved and enriched my learning capacity has been my one-on-one relationship with a wise clinical supervisor. The hour that I set aside every month or so with my supervisor allows me to tease out clinical, career, and personal issues that could easily get tangled and overwhelming. The relationship we have built, and the support I have been given, have enriched my skills and prevented me from burning out.
Now, after over a decade of learning this way, and at least another decade of clinical, educational, and research experience, I feel it is my turn to offer supervision to others. Inspired by the Living Libraries around the globe, particularly the first Human Library established in Denmark in 2000, I set out to develop a way to formalise and expand the already existing networks of GPs who seek or seek to provide supervision.
As I mapped out the project, I saw an opportunity to transform this expansive network of GPs across Australia into a diverse, independent, self-guided matchmaking service between media seeking experts, and GP experts willing to speak to media. Now, the GP Living Library has become a way for anybody to find a GP with the expertise and willingness to engage with them on anything from local speaking engagements to media statements, creating equal opportunities for diverse expertise to become accessible.
Liz Waldron, Living Librarian
I have had the dubious luck, in my life, to be in the position of building a considerable degree of health literacy without actually entering a healthcare profession. Healthcare is such a core aspect to anybody’s ability to operate within society that it has become an economy of existence; understanding healthcare is a prerequisite of making sense of one’s own body, which can become a critical issue during the chaos of life.
I am deeply passionate about what is “fair”, about justice; this has guided my focus in life towards accessibility, transparency, and representation. I believe that the carefully curated image of healthcare which makes its mark on Public Service Announcements is doing a disservice to patients and healthcare professionals: it contributes to a conceptual divide between patients and doctors which minimises the complexity of both parties.
My GPs have always been a touchstone for my mental and physical health - as they should be - yet I have met many who feel distant, distrustful, or simply don’t think of going to their GP. This appears to be rooted in a lack of understanding of the underlying expertise involved in general practice - and who can blame them, when the public image of GPs is one not of academic discourse or lived experiences in practice, but of paternalistic reminders to wash your hands and get your vaccines? These are not unimportant reminders, but the lack of diversity of message and spokespeople generate a background radiation of distance between patient and doctor roles.
I believe in the potential for the Living Library to repair the national doctor-patient relationship, to pick the burrs out of the MBBS sock. With this project, I believe GPs can feel safer to use their lived experiences to provide new perspectives without feeling vulnerable to the judgment of potential patients. I believe patients can feel safer understanding that GPs can be experts in specific clinical areas, and that their expertise is valuable. And I believe that with the ability to assess and choose GPs based on experiences and expertise, media, conferences, and panels will be more able to build a representative model of what being a healthcare professional means.