Physicians in the Workplace Oral Abstracts

not available at time of printing. “MEDICINE, A HEALTHY PROFESSION?” Roger Sexton Doctors Health, South Australia, Australia Having a doctor is good for your health but evidence shows that doctors can have considerable difficulty finding one. Our health is critical to our personal and professional longevity. The professional consequences of suboptimal health can include poor conduct and performance which translate into poorer patient outcomes and more frequent notifications to the Medical Board. The personal sequelae can include social, relationship and financial distress and the occurrrence of ‘sentinel’ events such as suicides and serious medicolegal incidents. Such events have not driven the sort of system-wide change across the profession that one might expect and only a paucity of initiatives has emerged. The profession as a whole has neither sought to actively and positively influence the medical culture towards better self-care nor create professionspecific solutions that improve the formal health care of doctors. In SA, however, the opportunity to do so arose in 2010 and a specific doctors’ health program was established to improve the number of doctors with their own doctor. This paper will discuss the background to this initiative, how the profession responded and the process by which this was achieved. The paper will emphasise the consequences of poor health and the importance of the profession driving its own solutions. LAUNCH OF THE RACP “HEALTH OF DOCTORS” POSITION STATEMENT