Digital mental health services play an important role in future health service design. However, if GPs are to prescribe them, we need more evidence of their accessibility and efficacy. In a recent press release, the Health Minister Mark Butler claimed that new digital services are the first step towards…

In Part 2 of her series, Dr Louise Stone explores whether digital mental health services are providing the safety and value for money we expect. In the previous article, I explored current policy positions on the use of digital mental health services, and discussed how these services are being actively…

In part 1 of this series, Dr Louise Stone examines current national policies and digital mental health frameworks. Mental health services have never been more heavily funded, but despite substantial increases in investment, the demand for mental health services continues to outstrip supply. Digital…

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…

Dr Tanvir Kapoor opens up about his journey in overcoming stigma from obesity, saying judgement has no place in medicine. A few weeks ago, on a popular online forum for Australian general practitioners (GPs), there was a discussion about using the label “obesity” in medical documentation. I want…

Before the health workforce is “unleashed”, we must consider what an appropriate governance system might look like that balances autonomy and agency and apply it to everyone working in primary care. The federal Health Minister the Hon Mark Butler has announced a review designed to “unleash the…

GPs with mental health expertise are leaving the profession, leaving a worrying gap in the delivery of vital frontline mental health care, writes Canberra GP Dr Louise Stone. In part one of this two-part series, I introduced the concept of mental health generalism, a term I use to describe the core…

GPs play a vital role in mental health care, but their place is often overlooked, writes Canberra GP Associate Professor Louise Stone ... When I first moved to Canberra, I was asked to speak at a mental health event. I assumed the organisers had access to my profile and knew that I was teaching into…

An innovative new research project hopes to gain insight into the unique mental health challenges faced by Australian youth, write Louise Stone, Caitlin Pilbeam, Erin Walsh … YOUNG people in Australia have difficulty accessing appropriate mental health support. In the wake of coronavirus disease 2019…

I AM not ashamed to say that huge swathes of 2022 have completely baffled me. Welcome to the last issue of InSight+ for the year, by the way. We’ve had a cracking year, with our readership growing by about 40% on 2021 by user numbers, and our articles being clicked on just shy of 895 000 times in…

IN recent years, GPs have been nudged into changing their clinical practice through the analysis of proxy variables. Our billing, prescribing and pathology testing data and our recording of other proxy variables are analysed by government, and then linked to rewards, or threats designed to change our…

The sad thing is that the system is behaving the way it was designed to do. Intentional or not, the demise of good general practice has been predictable for decades. The question remaining is whether the community is happy to let it go. LIKE many of my colleagues, I couldn’t sleep on Monday night…

GPs have reached their Peter Finch moment – they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take this anymore, according to attendees at last Wednesday’s crisis summit in Canberra. “We’ve always had this social contract,” said Associate Professor Louise Stone, speaking with InSight+. “We’ve…

Frankly, I don’t think any of us have the right to extend our scope of practice without accepting the responsibility of submitting to appropriate oversight to keep the public safe I HAVE been thinking a lot lately about the push to enable health care workers to work “top of scope”. Scope of practice…

GENERAL practitioners are used to filling gaps in the health system. Over our careers, we have lived through times where we are seen as underqualified and then essential to a range of services, including maternity care, dermatology, sexual health and more recently, urgent care, infectious disease and…

We are the best value mental health care in the country using less than 3% of the total mental health budget to see the majority of the patients needing community care. Current underfunding added to rhetoric that alienates and misrepresents GPs seems a counterproductive strategy if we are to provide…

A POLL run by InSight+ recently showed that 67% of doctors still believe that seeking help for their mental health problems will endanger their career. This is not new information, and yet doctors’ mental health continues to be an ongoing concern. Beyond Blue’s now famous 2013 National Mental Health…

This article is part of a monthly series from members of the GPs Down Under (GPDU) Facebook group, a not-for-profit GP community-led group with over 6000 members, that is based on GP-led learning, peer support and GP advocacy. This is the second of a two-part series on chronic illness in children. Part…

This article is part of a monthly series from members of the GPs Down Under (GPDU) Facebook group, a not-for-profit GP community-led group with over 6000 members, that is based on GP-led learning, peer support and GP advocacy.  “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone…

This is the sixth article in a monthly series from members of the GPs Down Under (GPDU) Facebook group, a not-for-profit GP community-led group with 5800 members, which is based on GP-led learning, peer support and GP advocacy. IN the past 3 years, we have been conducting a qualitative study exploring…

RECEIVING a diagnosis, even a bleak one, can bring relief to patients. But if the disease is “low prestige”, or a solid diagnosis is not available, patients can be left isolated, depressed, lonely, and even retraumatised. Associate Professor Louise Stone, from the Academic Unit of General Practice…

TALKING to patients about abuse can be like opening Pandora’s box, which is why experts are calling for integrated trauma-informed education to guide doctors in what questions they need to ask, and how to manage the answers they may get. Dr Gabrielle Matta, psychiatry registrar at St Vincent's Mental…

THE rate of surgical abortions nationally has declined by 5.1% per year since the listing of mifepristone/misoprostol in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2013. According to research published by the MJA, national abortion data have not been published in the peer-reviewed literature since 2005.…

WIDESPREAD rapid antigen testing of asymptomatic people will be key to relieving pressure on NSW’s overwhelmed SARS-CoV-2 testing and tracing systems, experts say. NSW Health announced on Friday that all authorised workers who work outside their Local Government Area (LGA) of concern would only be…

WELCOME to the penultimate edition of MJA InSight for 2016, a year that has been both unforgettable and very much in need of forgetting. The deaths of a string of pop culture icons that included David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Harper Lee, Jon English, Ronnie Corbett, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Kenny…

CONSIDER this as a new treatment paradigm: orthopaedic surgeons tell their patients with compound comminuted fractures to cure the break by avoiding falls. Or, immunologists tell patients with hepatitis B-associated liver cancer that they will be cured if they avoid the exchange of bodily fluids. Ophthalmologists…