4. Stay fit & be responsible

As a doctor, you carry a duty to be physically and mentally fit for work, follow safe and lawful instructions, and avoid hazards, including substance misuse. 

You have responsibilities as a student, employee, contractor or visiting consultant.

You must be physically and mentally fit for work, proactively manage health issues and, where relevant, disclose functional limitations to your employer, and systematically try to avoid physical or psychosocial hazards. If you have a disability or other physical or mental condition, that prevents or interferes with you ability to participate fully at the workplace, please discuss this with your general practitioner to discuss options and solutions. 

You are required to follow fair and safe instructions, maintain zero alcohol or illicit drug levels (including misuse of psychostimulant pharmaceuticals), and try to maintain your mental and physical fitness through a healthy lifestyle. Balanced nutrition, regular physical activity and restorative sleep are essential lifestyle choices that support overall wellbeing.

These individual responsibilities do not replace an employer’s legal duty to provide safe systems of work, adequate staffing, reasonable hours, and a workplace free from physical and psychosocial harm.

Updated RACGP Preventive Health Guidelines (the Red Book) emphasise the need for an annual routine check-up by your GP according to your risk factors at certain ages, including mental health screening, heart, stroke and diabetes risk assessments and investigations, and cancer screening for cervix, breast, bowel and prostate cancers as appropriate.

You should also stay up to date on vaccinations, such as influenza, COVID-19, Hepatitis A/B, among others. These screenings and vaccinations are crucial to sustaining fitness for practice over the long term.

These routine preventive health consultations also give you an opportunity to build trust and a long-term relationship with your own GP. Continuity of care with a regular GP provides a reliable safety net during periods of stress, including debriefing after exposure to trauma.

Your trusted GP can provide or refer you for evidence-based psychological and psychiatric treatment of mental illness, as well as write confidential medical certificates if you need time off work without disclosing the medical reason to your employer.

The Medical Board advises against treating colleagues in your close clinical teams or family members unless it is an emergency, because objectivity and appropriate review cannot be assured.

Mandatory reporting to the Medical Board is not required if you seek help for mental health treatment unless you are at significant risk of harming patients. 

For more information, please refer to:
https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Notifications/mandatorynotifications.aspx

You are never alone. Topic 9 provides comprehensive, confidential pathways to support without damaging your career.

For further information, the 2nd edition of the book Every Doctor: healthier doctors = healthier patients co-authored by Dr Leanne Rowe and published by Taylor and Francis is available via Booktopia. See Topic 12.

For employer and board-level WHS duties to design safe systems of work, see Topic 3.