Every doctor has experienced heartsink with the realisation that the next patient encounter will be difficult. Engaging with heartsink issues is demanding and uncomfortable but necessary.

Chronic pelvic pain can be challenging for practitioners but more especially patients. Understanding its nature and the range of available therapies can assist significantly.*

The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ resonates strongly with medicolegal issues. Failing to recognise or manage problems early is likely to lead to worse outcomes and increased costs.

The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ resonates strongly with medicolegal issues. Failing to recognise or manage problems early is likely to lead to worse outcomes and increased costs.

Education and learning activities that specifically target areas of medicolegal risk can help reduce the likelihood and severity of future medicolegal events.

This issue of AJGP examines musculoskeletal conditions – how these cause pain and how to manage the multitude of ways in which these impairments affect the lives of our patients.

Pain due to musculoskeletal conditions is difficult to express and define and is often overlooked in consultations.

Holistic primary care extends not just across an individual’s lifespan but also to people of all cultures, genders, orientations, beliefs and socio-economic position.

New insights into our understanding of skin morphology, treatment and cultural contexts equip GPs to manage various skin diseases as they might present in all the individuals they serve.

Explicit, focussed, and repeated teaching of clinical reasoning and the systematic diagnostic approach is needed to promote timely, correct and complete diagnosis, and the reduction of mistakes.

This issue of AJGP examines breathing – how to measure it and how to preserve it, both while awake and while asleep.

General practice represents the synergy between mechanistic and humanistic cognitive paradigms – promoting the best of science and technology, while placing the patient and their welfare centrally.

The differing cognitive frameworks and life experiences of GPs have brought varied approaches to problem solving and patient engagement into the profession.

If a medical practitioner is to care for the whole person across their lifespan, they must have expertise in patient care across organ systems, treatment modalities and demographics.

We are more than the sum of our body parts. Our dignity and equality have practical implications for narrative, patient outcomes and influence in general practice.