Men want dose of humour from GPs

LONG-HELD assumptions that men don't care about their health are wrong and it is doctors who need to adapt their approach, a university expert says.

LONG-HELD assumptions that men don't care about their health are wrong and it is doctors who need to adapt their approach, a university expert says.

Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men's Health director and Adelaide University head of medicine Professor Gary Wittert said there had long been a perception that men avoided doctors, when this was not the case. Instead, Dr Wittert said men had a different approach to women when they sought help from a GP and doctors needed to recognise this.

"It is incorrect to assume that men are not interested in their health, but as health professionals we need to better understand how to engage with men," he said. "Men want to receive advice in a straightforward way with a bit of humour and while a lot of GPs do address them in this sort of way, there are also a lot that don't.

"We can't make the way men want to receive information like that of women," he said, and doctors need to adapt.

Australian Medical Association SA president Dr Peter Sharley agreed men were more interested in their health, but said the way doctors addressed them was not at the core of the problem. "Most people want to lead a healthy life and not talking about particular topics doesn't mean they are not interested in them," he said.

Keeping health issues at the forefront of male minds is one of the biggest challenges, Dr Sharley believes.

"I think there needs to be more of an open conversation than what we've had previously and we need to get men talking about these issues among themselves more often," he said.

"Anything we can do to advertise, encourage, inform and get men to see their GP, then it's going to help, we just have to get as much information out there as we can.

"This includes everything from assistance to stopping smoking to having all the required health checks."