Max Kamien was born and educated in Perth, Western Australia. His parents had migrated from Poland and Russia. His first literary venture was to edit the ‘Reflex’, the journal of the Western Australian Medical Students’ Society. It achieved the distinction of being one of the only two publications officially burned in 20th century Australia. Since then he has published a lot on Aboriginal, migrant and rural health issues, general practice, medical education, sports medicine and medical history. He has postgraduate qualifications in internal medicine, psychiatry and child health but his main interest is in primary health care. He has doctored in the UK, Timor Leste, New Guinea, Nepal, the Middle East, the Far East and the Far West of New South Wales where he wrote the book ‘ The Dark People of Bourke’, exploring the concept of a doctor acting as an agent of social change. In 1976, he was appointed the first Professor of General Practice in Australia. He retired from UWA in 2003 but continues to practice both in Perth and as a remote area GP locum. Like many medicos, he regards himself as having been fortunate enough to have a job which is also a hobby and from which he has never tired.He is a recipient of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Medical Education, Award for research and the Dr Louis Ariotti Award for rural health research. He is a Member of the Order of Australia and a Western Australian Citizen of the Year.

Craig Hilton, working under the pen name Jenner, has been an Australian newspaper and magazine cartoonist for over twenty years. He has been drawing professionally and non-professionally in both the Australian and US markets for many years, squeezing his production in the small amount of time outside his duties as a full-time doctor. His editorial cartoons were a regular feature in Australian Doctor magazine, and his caption competition cartoons graced the Medical Journal of Australia. He is perhaps best known for his long-running medical daily comic strip, Doc Rat, which is available on-line and in books, as well as in the British Journal of General Practice and the Think GP educational web site. He was born in South Australia and was educated in Perth, Western Australia. During his study of Medicine at the University of Western Australia, Max Kamien was one of his teachers.He has worked in all corners of Australia, from the city to the country to the outback. He is currently in an inner suburban general practice in Melbourne, where he now teaches students of his own.He enjoys cartoons, especially those with animals in them.

252 pages : colour illustrations ; 21 cm #230522