Aust J Physiother
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It is not easy to talk sensibly about middle age because there is real doubt as to whether it exists. It is something which rapidly recedes from us as we approach it and at the other end it blends confusingly into old age. During this century improvements in medical care and a general increase in living standards have led people to expect to retain good health until quite late in life. It is now unusual for a physician to attribute any illness merely to old age and he would be most unwise to do so in a patient under the age of 70.
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What are Universities trying to produce by the end of the medical course? What is the purpose of our clinical education? It is easy enough to say that it is to produce "a good doctor", and perhaps we all know what that means although we might have differing interpretations of what constitutes a good doctor. Perhaps you know clearly what you mean when you graduate a good physiotherapist or a good speech therapist, but we have a lot of uncertainties about this, and about whether somebody who is reasonably good now will also be good in five years' or 10 years' time or even in one year's time when they are practising by themselves and not under our supervision.