The GP Show – with Dr Sam Manger
As a General Practitioner, Medical Educator and ASLM board member, Dr Sam Manger certainly has a lot on his plate, but recently, he has undertaken a new project, launching The GP Show – a new and innovative podcast – free and accessible to all.
After hearing of this new venture, we asked Dr Manger to tell us more about the podcast series that he refers to as a “labour of love”.
So, I started a podcast call “The GP Show”, the two questions you might ask are – what is it and why did I do it?
Amongst other things I am a GP and a medical educator, so I have to do a bit of travel. I often listen to podcasts because they are an efficient way to learn something new and/or interesting. Whilst there are lots of good podcasts on various topics I wanted to find one that covered some of the common or important topics I come across as a GP, and in particular, some evidence based content on lifestyle medicine. But I have not found anything that quite fitted. So, in the end I thought I would just create it!
We cover a variety of topics with case studies, guideline reviews, guest interviews with specialists and other health practitioners. It is designed for medical doctors and allied health practitioners, including general practitioners, specialists, nurses, registrars/residents, medical students and anybody interested in health, science and medicine. I cover clinical areas like “approach to the red eye”, and more broad areas like the microbiome and changing patient behaviour – so hopefully there is something for many different professional backgrounds.
I don’t make any money from it, it is a labour of love.
I also love history, I studied it on top of my science degree. So, when I remember – I throw in a bit of medical history trivia at the beginning of the episodes like “where did the symbol of medicine come from?”
We also asked Dr Manger to share some of the highlights from his interviews and shows so far.
I have enjoyed all the interviews so far, but some highlights have included:
- Smoking Cessation with Associate Professor Renee Bittoun – A/Prof Bittoun gave one of the most useful workshops I have ever done at the recent Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine conference on smoking cessation, so I had a chat with her and covered some of the key principles.
- Changing Patient Behaviour with Dietitian and health coach extraordinaire Shivaun Conn. We discussed some principles around how to more effectively change patient behaviour for the better. It is a topic that requires years of study, application and improvement, but we had some laughs covering a few basics, including tips from our experience, motivational interviewing, setting ‘SMART’ goals, the true cost of eating healthy and more.
I did my first few episodes solo because I was still getting used to the tech and “warming” into it. I learnt a lot when researching the topics and one of my favourites was covering the latest evidence in chronic back pain. Perhaps not surprisingly, the evidence for medication is generally poor and rather supports lifestyle interventions like exercise, mindfulness, psychotherapy and new concepts like neuroplasticity.
And lastly, he gave us an interesting picture of where ‘The GP Show’ might be heading moving forward.
There are a whole bunch of ideas I have for the future – more guest interviews with clinicians and researchers in medicine and allied health and reviewing controversial new topics in the health arena and more.
Overall though I want to keep a recurring theme on lifestyle medicine because that is what I love doing.
The GP Show
Available on all podcast apps, links include:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-gp-show/id1267681502?mt=2
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