GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

Dr Gerard D McLaren
FRACGP, FAFRM (RACP), FACRM

Gerry McLaren has dual qualifications as a senior consultant in rehabilitation medicine and as a senior family physician. This means that he has maintained dual accreditation with the Royal Australian College of Physicians and with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners for the last four decades. His clinical qualifications thus make him almost unique in Australasia.

Gerry has a solid reputation for integrity while aiming for clinical excellence with laughter and engagement. He brings a fresh approach to clinical problems, centred on active patient learning and cooperative family management. He is a family man and is part of an extended family network, which already includes eleven grandchildren.

His interactions with families thus have a very practical focus.

In his consultant rehab physician role, Gerry has been involved in managing some of the most complex clinical challenges in Australian society, often in remote or regional communities. For many decades he has worked with complicated diabetics, amputees and people w¬ith complex musculoskeletal disorders. He has a thorough knowledge of foot and leg biomechanics. Gerry has also had extensive involvement with people who have neurological problems, including traumatic and acquired brain injury or stroke survivors.

He has a keen interest in paediatrics and vaccination roll outs, dermatology and eye conditions, general, travel and exercise medicine and also in mental health and complex care management.

In 2012 Gerry was the first rehabilitation physician to live in Central Australia and attempt to work side by side with impoverished communities to improve outcomes for some of the most disadvantaged people in our nation

Taking on clinical challenges has been a necessary part of his journey and Gerry has certainly put himself on the line.

At home Gerry is an adventure and landscape photographer with a focus on wilderness survival, alpine flora ecology and teaching young children. Perhaps this is a metaphor for surviving complex clinical challenges over time.