Australian Doctor : Can you explain the circumstances of your diagnosis ?

Dr Peter Goldsworthy : I ’ d had an ACL reconstruction 30 years previously , and so by my 60s my knee was pretty stuffed .

My wife Lisa and I had booked to

doctor writer . What great material .”

It was this weird mixture of excitement tempered with ‘ it ’ s really caught up with me ’.

Australian Doctor : Doctors as patients often know too much . Were there no softening voices in your head ?

Australian Doctor : Doctors are given a rare insight into the extraordinary lives of ordinary people . How has that shaped your writing ?

Dr Goldsworthy : The two have gone hand in hand all my life .

I was writing before I was a doctor .

At the time , I was sort of the house husband and working part-time in alcohol and drug rehab .

As the children got older and reached school-age , I started helping out more and more in the practice . I ’ d write in the mornings and then go down there and work as a GP in the afternoons .

Even then you ’ re never quite what you were immunologically .

It really struck me with some shock , however , that after my stem cell transplant , when I wasn ’ t sure I ’ d get back to practice , I realised that I missed my patients , people who were my extended family .

So I came back just a couple of

go to Sri Lanka on a holiday , but the

When I was 11 or 12 , I was writing

I was pretty lucky to be able to do

mornings a week , with patients

dodgy knee gave way on me . So I cancelled the holiday and

Dr Goldsworthy : Those positive blood test results certainly didn ’ t

poetry , then science-fiction stories , and I wrote all the way through med-

both jobs part-time — I wasn ’ t making much money from my writing

screened for temperature or gastro . Then COVID-19 came along with

booked into my orthopaedic surgeon

hold any mystery to me — there were

ical school .

job , so that worked really well .

telehealth and that helped a lot .

of choice .

no real unknowns to me . I knew what

It ’ s taken me a while to realise

I think I was probably a bit

Getting back to practice — it was

For my MRI , I went to see a radi-

I was in for .

that they ’ ve both been good for each

absent-minded as a GP at first .

great , wonderful .

ologist I know , a guy called Shaun

I thought maybe I had three years ,

other .

It took me time to appreciate the

I realised how much I ’ d missed

Fowler .

maybe four years on average , so I

I think writing ’ s made me a better

actual stories of my patients , not just

some of those patients .

In my hope it was just a medial

started thinking about what we were

doctor , and being a doctor has made

to diagnose their illnesses .

But I ’ m still careful about who I

meniscus , I wrote “ query MM ” on

going to do .

me a better writer .

I suppose I was more impatient

see , and I don ’ t go lancing abscesses

the referral .

I ’ m an optimist . I also trust in evi-

Writing has taught me to be a bet-

back then .

anymore .

I wandered around the corner to the practice , Shaun did the scan , and then he called me into his office

dence-based medicine . There are not many things on this planet that are more trustworthy .

ter listener than the science nerd that I was when I started out on the path to medicine .

Over the last maybe 10 years or more , I ’ ve listened more and joked more with the patients than I did 40

Australian Doctor : How have your patients responded ?

afterwards , saying : “ Yeah , you ’ re

The algorithms in medicine , in

I suppose that medicine gave me ,

years ago .

going to need that knee seen to , but your bone marrow looks a bit funny . “ It might be multiple myeloma .” And I said : “ Sean , I put that idea

terms of whether you ’ re going to have a good outcome or a bad outcome — you generally know one way or the other .

as it often does , that black , black sense of humour .

And my patients have given me great material all the way along .

Australian Doctor : So what happened with your own practice after your diagnosis ?

Dr Goldsworthy : The secret party they threw in the waiting room was pretty special .

One of my 80-year-olds made a

in your head with my ‘ MM ’.” Just to disprove him , I went straight down and took blood myself

Yes , it can stuff up at times , because of human error of course , but it learns from its mistakes .

Australian Doctor : How did you become a GP ?

Dr Goldsworthy : About seven years ago , Helen retired and passed me the

long appointment , as he was supposed to stall me during the consult while they set up the waiting

and sent it off .

I knew the only way I could

practice for a peppercorn .

room with the connivance of the

After a three-day wait for the results , they came back positive .

change my outcome would be to refuse medical treatment , and there

Dr Goldsworthy : My then wife Helen — we got divorced 25 years ago

I thought , well , what should I do ? I was writing books , but they

receptionists . So he ’ s rabbiting on and on and

I hadn ’ t told my wife or chil-

was no way I was going to do that .

— started the practice in Adelaide .

hadn ’ t made any of these films out

on , and I ’ m thinking I ’ ve really got

dren about the blood test because

of my books that they were always

to get out of here , I ’ ve got to do a

I seriously didn ’ t believe it was a

promising . So I thought , I can ’ t be

house call .

possibility .

relying on that for my super .

Finally , I said : “ Okay , Pete , we ’ ll

My initial reaction ?

I thought , I ’ ll do both our jobs for

talk about this later .”

It was surprise , of course .

three or four years , and work full-

I walked out to the waiting room ,

My denial was pretty watertight

time as a GP for the first time ever .

and I caught them red-handed with

— but it was soon breached .

And I did that for a few years until

the red balloons and the champagne

Then I thought : “ I have to tell

I got sick .

and the cake .

Lisa . Will I tell her now ? No , I won ’ t .

I ’ ll tell her face to face , and the children too . I won ’ t do it on the phone .”

So ringing one of the haematologists at the Royal Adelaide Hospital was the first thing I did . I paged Noemi Horvath . She ’ d kept a couple of patients

Australian Doctor : But you returned to work after your stem cell treatment ?

Dr Goldsworthy : Sort of . You ’ re like a big baby afterwards . You ’ re bald , you ’ re in nappies — I was any-

Australian Doctor : In your book you ’ ve written about your sense of guilt over a certain missed diagnosis .

Dr Goldsworthy : It ’ s weird that probably the worst mistake I ’ ve

of mine alive for years and was an

way , for a long time — and then

made in another human is missing

authority in the field . Once I ’ d booked in to see her , I thought : “ Jeepers , karma has finally caught up with me — but you know , I can write about this as well . I ’ m a

Scan of author ’ s knee showing the ‘ funny ’ bone marrow . The dark area is the wreckage of the ACL reconstruction ; the pale spots the myeloma infiltration .

you start your baby immunisation schedule ( exactly as it ’ s written in the blue book ) six months after the transplant because you ’ ve got no immunity .

myeloma in a patient with bone pain and tiredness .

That ’ s the one that seems so stupid and obvious in retrospect .

When I was finally PAGE 8