As another year draws to a close, InSight+ wishes to thank all of our readers and contributors for another year of sharing your excellent medical and health stories. We have covered a vast array of subjects in our issues this year. Professor Leanne Rowe, our regular contributor, is very popular with…

Under new industrial manslaughter laws, a doctor’s suicide linked to workplace mental injury may no longer be just a tragedy – it can be a crime. All medical workplaces, colleges, medical defence organisations (MDOs) and the AMA must unite to address systemic WHS breaches and to strengthen, coordinate…

Amid unprecedented medical workforce pressures, many doctors are rethinking their futures. Yet new WHS laws provide the tools to protect our wellbeing and our careers — if we use them. This piece urges every doctor to lead by example: know the law, speak up about poor working conditions and other…

Australia’s public hospitals are under severe financial strain, with the current National Health Reform Agreement dispute highlighting the system’s non-viability. In a compromised environment of constrained resources, government legislated work health and safety reform in public hospitals is not…

The ABC’s Four Corners program God Complex should be regarded as a catalyst for change. Speaking up — safely, lawfully and together — is the first step. The message is clear: the time for silence is over. The health system must lead, not lag, in complying with workplace laws — before the next…

Advice about delaying pregnancy or parental leave may be dismissed as an innocent attempt to help early career doctors achieve their goals, but it constitutes a breach of the Sex Discrimination Act. The fundamental human right to choose when or whether to have a baby is none of our business. The best…

Recently, doctors in training across the country expressed their widespread frustration about the derogatory attitudes of human resources (HR) management in public hospitals.  If intractable workplace abuses of doctors in training are not addressed, some public hospital directors and officers may…

As 2024 draws to a close, the team at Insight+ would like to thank you for your engagement over the past year. Your continued support means a lot to us as we search for the best medical and health stories to keep you informed. We’d also like to acknowledge the roles you have in health care and what…

Under the recently amended Sex Discrimination Act, the medical profession risks attracting the scrutiny of the Australian Human Rights Commission unless sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, and victimisation of complainants or witnesses are eliminated in its workplaces and training…

As 2023 comes to a close, so too does our first year bringing you InSight+ every week. It’s been a challenging year, but also a rewarding one, as the InSight+ team worked hard to bring you the latest medical news and expert opinion with each issue. Before we head off on a well earned holiday, we wanted…

Parts 1 and 2 of this three-part series were a call to action to the medical profession to unite and transform its approach to preventing and managing work-related burnout and mental injury in doctors. In Part 3, my goal is to begin a positive conversation about the role of senior doctors in cocreating…

This second opinion piece in the three-part series is a call for further action by a united medical profession to address the enormous scale of work-related burnout and mental injury in doctors who work in psychologically unsafe health care workplaces. There are solutions. When a 24-year-old labourer’s…

Many medical organisations and health services are working diligently to reduce the enormous scale of burnout and mental injury in doctors, but further action is required to address its impact on doctors’ families, writes Dr Leanne Rowe in part one of this three-part series.  During Australia’s…

Verbal and physical assault in hospital wards, accident and emergency departments and primary care should never be accepted as “part of the job” and more steps must be taken to keep all health care workers safe, including doctors, write Dr Gifar Hassan and Clinical Professor Leanne Rowe AM. The…

Urgent action is required to address the systemic barriers deterring access to eye health care in Australia, write Dr Gifar Hassan and Clinical Professor Leanne Rowe AM. For many years, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) and other eye health organisations have…

“The new meaning of ‘first do no harm’ includes a consideration of ourselves as well as our patients. This is not to be confused with selfishness or ‘looking out for number one’. It is about a long-term obligation to our own wellbeing, health and safety, which is essential for the competent…

I REFLECT upon my own mentors from early childhood days into adulthood and recognise the influence they had in shaping my confidence, passion, growth, and inner strengths. My earliest experience of mentorship was in high school Year 8 [then Form 2] about 46 years ago, when I passionately wrote an essay…

I RECENTLY asked a number of exhausted junior residents how the community can best show their appreciation for their dedicated service at the frontline of the pandemic crisis. As all Australians owe these doctors a debt of gratitude for their contribution, we should be concerned that stopping public…

“We are … locking people out who have not got vaccinated to protect themselves and protect everybody else.” THOSE were the words of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews as he recently announced the joyous news of Melbourne’s release after 262 days of strict stay-at-home orders. While Premiers are announcing…

THANK you for providing an opinion on the following urgent issues confronting our surgical patients. As surgeons and their hospitals are busy tackling the backlog of elective procedures after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, they may not yet be fully aware of the significant access…

WELL before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic hit our health care system, it was apparent that a substantial number of doctors worldwide were experiencing mental illness (here and here), suicidal ideation and suicide mortality (here and here). While there is some debate as to whether…

A previously healthy 72-year old woman, Clare*, requests an increased dose of the opioids first prescribed by another GP via a telephone call. She has become housebound during the pandemic with severe right hip osteoarthritis, aggravated by immobility, weight gain and depression. The longer Clare waits…

THIS was the question I asked a number of my medical colleagues during the height of COVID-19. Here are some recent answers: “Public health”. “Australia isn’t America” “The funding of telehealth” “Reduced air pollution” And from a GP in remote Australia: “I always live like this…

AN inspiring, but overlooked image of the recent firestorms in Australia still plays on my mind. Dedicated aged care workers, many of whom were concerned about losing their own homes, walked across paddocks because of road blockages to care for frail senior Australians in residential aged care facilities.…

Harry*, an 82-year-old in an aged care facility with a comminuted fracture of his right radius, severe right shoulder pain and a deep facial laceration after a fall. David*, a 50-year-old with diabetes and cardiovascular disease with severe groin pain due to a strangulated hernia. Carmen*, a 45-year-old…

A GROUP of second year medical students recently told me they avoid consulting their own doctor for fear of a mandatory notification to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). They referred me to ongoing media reports claiming that the amended National Law will deter doctors and…

WELCOME to the last issue of InSight+ for 2019! Forty-eight issues in and we’ve covered a lot of ground – from adolescent concussion to XDR typhoid. This year we formed partnerships with the Black Dog Institute and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute to bring you regular content. We are…

AN emaciated man in his 80s was bedridden on layers and layers of newspapers in a futile attempt by his apathetic son to cover up the stench of faeces and urine. The trauma of being confronted with this abhorrent case of elder abuse on a home visit as a young GP over 30 years ago still haunts me. But…

HOW is it possible that endemic bullying (here, here, here and here) persists in medicine despite a Senate inquiry, viral social media campaigns, doctor education, incident reporting and other initiatives to improve awareness, mutual respect and medical culture? In some cases, we can blame health systems…

HEALTH care is increasingly complex. Objective peer review, constructive feedback and robust debate are essential to continually improve the quality of patient care. But doctors don’t always disagree well. One of the contributing factors to bullying in medicine is the complex interplay of different…

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Attributed to Albert Einstein DOCTORS continue to have high levels of mental illness and suicide partly because a medical career has never been more challenging. It is unthinkable that most doctors believe they cannot…

MY first response to a colleague who says “I am depressed” is critical for a number of reasons. Doctors have tough emotional masks and it has been difficult for my colleague to trust someone and disclose this. Due to the enormous stigma surrounding mental illness in the medical profession, this…

THE well known 2013 beyondblue national mental health survey of about 14 000 doctors and medical students reported that over 10% experienced suicidal thinking in the previous year. Five years on, we have failed to address the scale of our problem and we continue to confront the tears behind the statistics…

INCIDENTS of aggression from colleagues in clinical medical practice are surprisingly high in Australia, according to findings from the first nationwide study into medical workplace aggression. The authors of the research, published in the latest MJA, said the results of the cross-sectional study of…