Keynote address | Prof Iona Heath
| Sunday, October 29, 2023 |
| 3:45 PM - 4:45 PM |
| Darling Harbour Theatre |
Overview
Remembering what we know
Speaker
Professor Charlotte Hespe
Chair, RACGP NSW and ACT
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
Chairperson
Biography
Dr Iona Heath
Remembering what we know
3:45 PM - 4:45 PMSummary
1. Strong systems of primary care improve health outcomes at lower cost and with less health inequality.
2. Global expenditure on pharmaceuticals is unsustainable, both financially and ecologically.
3. Spending on improving the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age improves population health.
4. Symptoms are caused by biography as well as by biology
5. Continuity of care improves both morbidity and mortality.
6. Knowledge without wisdom is dangerous.
7. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
8. Touch is important.
9. Care, kindness, curiosity and caution work.
10. Everyone dies and it’s good that they do.
2. Global expenditure on pharmaceuticals is unsustainable, both financially and ecologically.
3. Spending on improving the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age improves population health.
4. Symptoms are caused by biography as well as by biology
5. Continuity of care improves both morbidity and mortality.
6. Knowledge without wisdom is dangerous.
7. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
8. Touch is important.
9. Care, kindness, curiosity and caution work.
10. Everyone dies and it’s good that they do.
Biography
Iona Heath is a retired inner city general practitioner in Kentish Town in London (1975-2010). A member at Large of the WONCA world executive (2007–2013) and past President of the UK Royal College of General Practitioners (2009-2012). Board Member of Preventing Overdiagnosis (2018-).
Iona Heath has written regularly for the British Medical Journal and has contributed essays to many other medical journals across the world. She has been particularly interested to explore the nature of general practice, the importance of medical generalism, issues of justice and liberty in relation to health care, the corrosive influence of the medical industrial complex and the commercialisation of medicine, and the challenges posed by disease-mongering, the care of the dying, and violence withi
