ABSTRACT
About the authors We are both general practitioners with diverse career paths and an interest in patients’ stories. Our journeys have brought us into contact with people from many cultures and we have worked outside what we would defi ne as our own cultural environments. At the time we were learning to be doctors there was very little in the medical curriculum that focussed on the stories that patients tell and the ways that both the content and the telling are infl uenced by culture, nature and nurture. We have learnt from experience and mentors. Jill B has extensive experience of working with diverse cultural groups and families, both in Australia and abroad. Her clinical interests include mental health in the primary care setting. She is the Australian representative on the WONCA (World Organization of Family Doctors) Mental Health Working Party. Jill T is now primarily a health professional educator but continues to work as a GP one day a week. She moved from a semi-rural practice in Yorkshire to tropical Australia nearly fi ve years ago. People mainly speak English where she works but language is not the only barrier to understanding and transcultural care.
