Whatever happens, it’s going to be bloody fantastic. Seriously.
Congratulations, you’ve survived another year slaving away at the coalface of general practice, but what’s going to happen in 2026? Professor Candid takes a look.
IT
In 2026 your computer will freeze 300 times, the printer will jam 16 times and you’ll forget your password on at least two occasions, forcing you to sit and wait for IT to pick up while reflecting on how inconceivably dumb you are.
Burnout
Despite doing all the right things, like exercising 40 minutes a day, eating broccoli and practicing mindfulness, you’ll burn out on either the last week of January or the first week of February.
Besides, mindfulness doesn’t really work.
Looking at the size, shape, texture and smell of 20 unfilled DSP reports doesn’t make them go away.
PBS
In 2026 you will spend nine hours of your life waiting on the PBS hotline so that someone can grant you a code which they always grant you anyway so what exactly is the point?
Also, the on-hold music is so depressing you could slit your wrists with it.
Eh?
On at least four occasions in 2026 one of your patients will tell you something so weird, so goddamn freaky you’ll be left questioning the point of existence.
“That’s right Doc, we ate a kangaroo’s brain on Boxing Day because, quite frankly, we had nothing better to do, and now I’m shitting out earwigs.”
“I had a bit of brewer’s droop so I rubbed capsaicin cream into the old fella and now it feels like I’m dangling my nutsack into a lake of lava. Have you got a pill I can take for it?”
“I was driving home when I felt a bit nauseous. So as I was sticking my head out of the window to vomit I accidentally drove off the road, careered through a field and scalped myself on a barbed-wire fence. I’ve got my hair in a Woolies bag if you want to stitch it back on for me, Doc.”
“I had a bad chest over Christmas, Doc, so I saved every single lung oyster and put them all in a big jar for you. Go on, have a smell. Tell me – you’re a doctor, is phlegm supposed to smell like that?”
Contingencies
I can predict that something unpredictable will happen to you in 2026.
Your car will catch fire, a tire or appendix will blow, a tree branch will snap off and land on your head.
But despite skating on thin ice at least you’ll be comforted by the fact that when you do finally make it into work you’ll be greeted by a waiting room full of grateful patients.
Yes, 2026 is going to be bloody fantastic.
