Main Street Medical Centre

If you're between 45 and 49, you can have a one-off health assessment with our practice nurse and your GP. Most people have never heard of it.

It's for anyone in that bracket carrying a risk factor for chronic disease: high blood pressure, a family history of diabetes or heart disease, smoking, or carrying extra weight. It's a longer appointment at 71 Main Street that goes through your blood pressure, your bloods, your weight, your family history and how you're actually living. You leave with a written plan.

You only get the one, and your forties is the stretch where checking beats assuming.

Bulk billed with a valid Medicare card.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

Send this to someone you know who's between 45 and 49.

We're closed today, Monday 5 October, for the King's Birthday public holiday. Back at 7:30am tomorrow.

If you need care today, the Hervey Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic at 5/166 Boat Harbour Drive, Pialba is open 7 days, 8am to 8pm. Walk in, no appointment needed, bulk billed for Medicare card holders.

For health advice at any hour, call 13 HEALTH on 13 43 25 84. In a life-threatening emergency, call 000.

You can still book online for later in the week at mainstreetmed.com.au.

Wishing everyone a lovely long weekend.

Give yourself ten minutes in good light this weekend and check your skin. Then ask someone to do your back, your scalp and the backs of your legs, because those are the spots people miss.

The ABCDE guide is the simplest way to know what you're looking at. A for asymmetry, one half not matching the other. B for a border that's irregular, blurred or notched. C for colour that varies across the spot. D for diameter, generally anything over about 6mm. E for evolving: a spot that's changing in size, shape or colour over weeks or months, or has started to itch, bleed or crust.

E is the one that matters most. A spot that's changing is worth showing a GP even if it passes the first four letters.

Skin check consultations at 71 Main Street, Pialba are bulk billed for eligible Medicare card holders. Our GPs have substantial experience in skin cancer medicine.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

Send this to whoever in your house never checks their back.

Hay fever season is up and running on the Fraser Coast, and spring is usually when it bites hardest.

Most people manage it themselves, and the three things that help most are a non-drowsy antihistamine, a steroid nasal spray used properly, and a saline rinse. The nasal spray is the one people give up on too early: it needs a fortnight of daily use before it does much, and it should be aimed slightly outward toward the ear rather than straight up.

Worth seeing a GP if it's getting into your sleep or your work, if the antihistamines have stopped touching it, if you're wheezing or short of breath, or if it's only ever one nostril or one eye. Hay fever and asthma travel together more often than people realise, and hay fever left alone makes asthma harder to control.

GP consults are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card. 71 Main Street, Pialba.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

Dr Ramani Poonehela has been looking after Fraser Coast families at 71 Main Street since 2018, so plenty of you will already know her.

She's a Fellow of the RACGP, and her clinical focus is women's hormonal health and children's health. That covers menopause and perimenopause care including HRT, PCOS and endometriosis, pregnancy shared care, newborn checks, and childhood immunisations and development checks. She also does Implanon insertions and removals, and keeps an eye on thyroid and bone health as her patients get older.

Before Hervey Bay she worked in Alice Springs, which gave her a broad grounding in regional general practice.

New patients and long-standing ones are both welcome. GP consults are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

Dr Priyani Perera was presented with her RACGP Fellowship at the College's conferring ceremony by RACGP President Dr Michael Wright.

Priyani did her general practice training here at 71 Main Street and became a Fellow of the RACGP in June. Fellowship takes at least three years of training after a medical degree, finishing with the College's exams, and she did it while looking after Fraser Coast patients every week.

There's more good news. Priyani is expecting a baby and will start maternity leave in the coming weeks. She's still seeing patients until then, so if you'd like to see her before she goes, now's the time to book.

Congratulations, Priyani, from all of us at Main Street!

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

If you've come in for anything to do with women's health at Main Street, there's a good chance you've already met Dr Padma Kaki.

She's a Fellow of the RACGP and also holds the DRANZCOG, a diploma in obstetrics and gynaecology. She's the doctor our team books IUD insertions and removals with, and she bulk bills both Mirena and copper IUDs for patients with a valid Medicare card. Cervical screening, contraception, perimenopause and menopause, pregnancy shared care: that's her ordinary week, alongside skin checks and general practice for the whole family.

She came to the Fraser Coast from Alice Springs, and she puts a lot of weight on continuity, seeing the same women from their teens through to after menopause.

New patients and long-standing ones are both welcome. GP consults are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card. 71 Main Street, Pialba.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

R U OK? Day is Thursday 10 September.

You don't need a crisis to book in. Our GPs see people every week for stress that won't switch off, low mood that's hung around, sleep that's fallen apart, or the vague sense that something's just off. You don't need the right words for it either.

If you'd like time to talk properly, ask reception for a longer appointment when you book, and tell us if you'd rather see the same doctor each visit. GP consults are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.
71 Main Street, Pialba.

If you need to talk to someone right now, Lifeline is 13 11 14.

Women's Health Week runs 7 to 11 September, and this year's theme is "Do it anyway".

Our take: the appointment that keeps sliding down your list — the cervical screening, the skin check, the menopause chat — deserves one of these five days.

Seven female doctors consult at Main Street Medical Centre: Dr Padma Kaki (our IUD lead), Dr Ramani Poonehela (menopause and HRT), Dr Zin Zin Thant (women's health and skin checks), Dr Tin Aung, Dr Priyani Perera, Dr Saharish Aman and Dr Katherine Sparks. Dr Shannon Abeywardena also consults. Choose whoever you're comfortable with, at every stage of life.

GP consults are bulk billed with a valid Medicare card.

Book online at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

Current Australian guidance recommends discussing PSA testing with your GP from age 50–69, or from age 45 if you are at higher risk. A PSA test is a blood test, but it does not diagnose prostate cancer on its own.

We bulk bill eligible Medicare card holders for standard GP consultations at 71 Main Street, Pialba. Some services may have out-of-pocket costs.

Book at mainstreetmed.com.au or call (07) 4325 4000.