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Public trust in doctors and health services is shifting slowly, but in the wrong direction in both Australia and the US. At the Australian Ethical Health Alliance (AEHA) symposium in May 2025, the message was clear, that as health professionals, we need to take swift action. As panellists speaking on the rise of misinformation and disinformation, we explored how trust has always been the ethical currency of medicine; however, once you start to spend it, everything else, including vaccination, screening, shared decision-making and even discharge planning to aged care, becomes harder.

Adrian Cosenza, Emily Kirkpatrick 

A sleek, colourful product offers a “sweet, ripe watermelon taste” with a “cool and icy kick” that will “tease your tongue and make your whole mouth quiver with joy”.

Michelle Jongenelis, Stefan Bode, Daniel Feuerriegel

Clinical guidelines and consensus statements provide systematic aids to making complex medical decisions. These documents integrate various forms of evidence—including from scientific research, clinician experience, and patient perspectives—with the aim of improving patient care and health outcomes. In this issue of the MJA, Anneliese Synnot and colleagues report findings from their scoping review on the extent and nature of consumer engagement in the development of Australian clinical practice guidelines. Despite recommendations from major guideline bodies that the guideline development process include people with lived experience, Synnot and colleagues found that extensive lived experience engagement was not reported for the majority of guidelines that they assessed. These findings suggest the need for guideline developers and publishers to pay much closer attention to lived experience engagement in Australian guideline development.

Elizabeth Zuccula

Concerns are rising over patients’ use of AI tools such as ChatGPT for health information, but with little awareness of the risks.

Nance Haxton

The cosmetic surgery industry in Australia has undergone significant regulatory reform in recent years in direct response to horrifying media reports of appalling patient stories and devastating outcomes. Plastic surgeons have been advocating for various reforms to the industry for many years, informed by our own experiences of seeing patients who had been harmed by those with inadequate surgical training and experience.

David Morgan

MS Australia’s 2025 Research and Advocacy Priorities Survey captures what matters most to Australians affected by multiple sclerosis. Drawing on insights from more than 2 000 participants, it highlights evolving research and advocacy priorities, and provides a community‑driven roadmap to guide research investment, policy reform and clinical practice nationwide.

Tennille Luker, Julia Morahan, Rohan Greenland, David Tscharke

“One who suffers has something to teach… and thus has something to give.”

Meagan Brennan

Australia’s health system is confronting workforce, safety, equity, and sustainability crises, with profound consequences for patients, clinicians, and communities. These grand challenges cannot be solved without strong clinical insight at the governance table. Yet doctors remain under-represented on health boards, often because they underestimate their ability to contribute. This opinion piece outlines how clinical leadership at a governance level can significantly contribute to better patient care, safer workplaces, and a strong, sustainable health system.

Leanne Rowe

With strengthened standards now in place, organisations have the mandate and the tools to treat transitions of care as a core unit of safety in aged care.

Simon Grof