In her previous articles for InSight+, Dr Sarah White has written about clinical communication, drawing on her and others’ experiences to illustrate research evidence on the science on health care interactions. In this article, she interviews Dr Rhiannon Parker from UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Social…

HAVE you ever prefaced a story with “did I tell you about ...”? We do this kind of prefacing to avoid telling the other person something they already know. This norm is present in everyday conversations as well as institutional ones. Personally, I say this a lot, particularly if I am explaining…

AS a lay person when it comes to medicine, I have a certain understanding of the word “diagnosis”. This was reflected in my doctoral research on the structure of surgeon–patient consultations where I preferred to label it as “reformulating the problem” to capture the process of combining information…

QUITE a few of my friends exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet. One of these gym-going friends recently went to have a COVID-19 test and during the pre-test screening was asked whether she was fit and healthy, to which she answered “yes”. The next question was whether she was on any medication,…

EARLIER this year I was in hospital for urgent surgery after it was found I had an ectopic pregnancy. While waiting in the anaesthetic bay at around 10 pm, the anaesthetist came in to ask me what I assume are all the usual preoperative questions. The nurse had already asked a few and now the doctor…

I HAVE experienced chronic pain all of my adult life. As part of my current management plan, I am prescribed pain medication. There is a lot of stigma attached to medication management of chronic pain, so I often find it difficult to bring it up, even though my regular GP developed the management plan…

DURING my undergraduate degree I was acutely unwell with a bad cold. I needed a medical certificate to get an extension on an assessment that was due so I could recover through rest. I couldn’t get into my regular GP, so I went to one nearer the campus. As I was a new patient, the doctor wanted to…

ONE of my favourite studies to share with doctors is what’s commonly known as the “some/any” study. In this randomised control trial, participating primary care doctors were trained to ask the patient about their additional concerns after they had presented their first concern (presenting complaint…

MEDICAL schools and colleges agree that communication is important to clinical practice. Sometimes it is seen as essential for patient satisfaction or rapport building, which are important, but this is a limited view as to how communication can directly affect patient care. As a linguist and conversation…

If we fail to act now – as a matter of urgency – to enforce the regulation designed to support prescription access to e-cigarettes, we will fail to protect the health of current and future generations of Australians IN June 2022 , the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) published…

IT always feels like a relief moving towards the end of the year, doesn’t it? Like somehow viruses and other global players will take a break just because the calendar is counting down. But if 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that pandemics don’t have much respect for summer holidays. This is…

IT took less than one week after nicotine was rescheduled in Australia for a tobacco company to insert itself into a role associated with health practice. On 6 October, a pharmacy industry magazine, the Australian Journal of Pharmacy, published a (now removed) article on nicotine vaping products with…

DOCTORS, in general, have a powerful voice, as we are generally trusted and respected. We are often asked to be members of boards and committees and to act as advocates. We present learnings from a virtual half-day event on 11 September called “MBA in a Day”, presented by the Committee of Chairs of…

LEADING public health experts have rejected warnings that a new ban on importing nicotine vaping products without an Australian doctor’s prescription could drive vapers back to smoking, as evidence for the potential harms of vaping grows. As of 1 October, it is illegal for Australian consumers to…

Here we summarise the presentations made at the “Climate change: what we can do” webinar organised by the Committee of Chairs of the Medical Colleges in Victoria on the 24 October 2020. The views here are those of the individual presenters and not necessarily those of their Colleges nor the Committee…

AUSTRALIA experienced its first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surge with a small number of mainly introduced infections and a national stage 3 lockdown from March to June 2020. This was followed by a second surge of community-spread disease in Melbourne, resulting in a city-wide stage 4 lockdown…

A MAJOR Australian-led trial has provided reassurance about the current practice of transfusing oldest-available red blood cells into critically ill adult patients, despite continuing debate over how long blood can be safely stored. In Australia, red blood cells are stored for up to 42 days. However,…

EMPLOYMENT support for people with mental illness is woefully inadequate, an expert says, as new research reveals the uptake of disability support pensions (DSPs) for psychiatric illnesses ballooned over the past decade. The study published in the MJA found that the prevalence of probable common mental…

LEADING psychiatrists and mental health professionals fear an exodus of mental health workers if the federal government does not quickly resolve the funding uncertainty affecting many community organisations.Counselling services, advocacy groups and outreach teams for the mentally ill are among the…

EXPERTS still support the use of absolute cardiovascular disease risk calculators in practice, despite evidence that they overestimate the likelihood of vascular events and concerns they may lead to overtreatment.A 10-year prospective study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, found the three…

THE risk of older patients dying after a hip operation varies strikingly between hospitals, with new research suggesting the involvement of geriatric services could explain the difference.The 30-day mortality rate after hip fracture surgery ranged from 2.7% to 11.6% in different NSW public hospitals…

NEW MJA research shows many doctors cannot identify a legally valid advance care directive and don’t know whether they are obliged to follow one that conflicts with their clinical judgement. (1)The findings, based on a survey of 867 specialists in emergency medicine, geriatric medicine, intensive…

A CONTROVERSIAL proposal to end cardiopulmonary resuscitation as the “universal default” for hospital inpatients and replace it with an opt-in system has generated heated debate among doctors and lawyers.In a “For debate’” article published today by the MJA, Associate Professor…

RESIDENTIAL aged care facilities are a “melting pot of everything that leads to poor antimicrobial stewardship” a leading expert has told MJA InSight, as new research exposes systemic failures in antibiotic prescribing in the sector.Associate Professor Ashley Watson, director of the Infectious…

THE media’s focus on disadvantage and disparity when reporting Indigenous affairs has come under fire in the latest issue of the MJA, with experts saying it is a form of colonialism with damaging health impacts. (1)Melissa Sweet, a health journalist and public health lecturer at the University…