Nursing home patients

This month's theme is particularly relevant to general practitioners (GPs) who visit residential aged care facilities, but many of the principles are applicable to aged patients who continue to reside in their own homes with various levels of support. How to best care for the elderly in a modern society is a question that resonates not only with Australian GPs in varied spheres of practice, but also with our overseas colleagues. This month we invited Margaret McCartney, a practising Scottish GP and published author, to share her perspectives on end-of-life care. Here she argues for a central role for general practice in improving the process of dying for our patients.