Dr Marguerite Tracy wants to convince GPs that patients turning up at the consult with the dreaded list can be a positive, not heartsink, moment.

The key is simply to encourage your patient to ask questions and to think through their questions beforehand.

During her workshop session at last month’s WONCA conference in Sydney, she said: “We need to be striving towards the normalisation of question prompt lists, and encouraging patients to ask questions.

“When people ask questions, they discover they have options.