A book on Australia’s COVID-19 experience by one of the world’s leading GP educators, Professor Leon Piterman AM, was launched last night at Monash University Museum of Arts.
Professor Piterman, who is also a practising GP, wrote Living in COVID Times to reflect on the extraordinary circumstances the pandemic put the world through last year. The series of essays look at the pandemic through different lenses, including reflections on mental health, politics, society, economy and religion.
The lead-up to Passover coincided with the significant outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Australia, prompting Professor Piterman to consider how the unprecedented circumstances fit in with religious practices.
“It contextualises the history of pandemics and how COVID fits into that history. Passover is about the exodus of slaves, and [when the first lockdown began] I drew parallels between one form of slavery and another form of captivity – the captivity we developed in our own minds,” he said.
Professor Piterman moves through the various stages of the pandemic, assessing a different aspect with each essay. He looks at the transitions into, and out of, lockdown, acknowledging their effectiveness while noting how they negatively impact mental health and the economy.
“We know that ultimately for many pandemics, isolation works when everything else fails, but it’s very hard to keep a society isolated for a very long period of time without consequences. I reflect on this conclusion throughout my book but in articularly in my essays on mental health and my Spanish Flu comparison,” he said.
Professor Piterman concludes his book by noting there’s an enormous amount to be learned from this pandemic, which should ideally prepare us better for any future pandemics.
“This time last year, we were in lockdown. We didn’t know when we would get out of it. We had death rates going up, especially in aged care, at a rapid rate. We didn’t know whether these would be a vaccine. We didn’t know if we’d even return to spotting events, theatres or other entertainment venues,” Professor Piterman said.
“We need to take note of history so we can be better prepared. We have to be prepared better than we were this one. We shouldn’t think that it can’t happen again. If you look through the ages, pandemics have occurred on a regular basis.
“If this all happened again, how would we react and what would we do differently, if anything at all?”
Living in Covid Times can be purchased from Black Pepper Publishing.
Leon Piterman AM is a Professor of General Practice at Monash University. He has published widely on clinical and educational issues related to general practice with a particular interest in mental health and chronic disease. He co-authored the text General Practice Psychiatry which has been translated into Italian and Chinese. He also published There is a lot of it going around… a GP’s odyssey (2019), a book of short stories based on patient encounters spanning over four decades of practice.
