Opinions

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 and fund evidence-based suicide prevention initiatives in medicine. Failure to do so may expose individuals and organisations to catastrophic penalties including imprisonment – but, more importantly, cost more doctors’ lives.

Leanne Rowe

The consultation room has a new participant. It arrives when patients pull up ChatGPT-generated symptom analyses. It appears when we use GenAI to check drug interactions or draft letters. And it's always listening when ambient AI scribes document our conversations. Whether acknowledged or not, GenAI is fundamentally changing what happens in the consultation room.

David Navarro

Why is it that different states and territories have different policies on meningococcal B vaccination?

Gary Grohmann, Robert Booy

For almost two decades, the Australian Medical Association’s Public Hospital Report Card has tracked the health of our public hospital system, and in the past four years, dedicated mental health editions of the report have highlighted the unique challenges patients face when accessing mental healthcare in public hospitals.

Danielle McMullen

Children’s experience of domestic violence is commonly framed in the context of physical violence; however, new research highlights how parental coercive control plays a critical role in shaping long-term wellbeing.

Julie Blake

It’s time for national policy that puts diagnostic safety on the agenda, and drives real change to prevent errors before more patients are harmed, write Laura Chien, Mary Dahm and Jen Morris.

Laura Chien, Mary Dahm, Jen Morris

The updated McDonald Diagnostic Criteria for MS have now been published, offering clinicians new tools to support earlier diagnosis, reduce uncertainty, and improve outcomes for Australians affected by the disease. Adoption into clinical practice is expected to follow as awareness and access to diagnostic tools grow.

Tennille Luker, Julia Morahan, Rohan Greenland, Todd A. Hardy

I write in support of the timely article by Stephen and Sarah Duckett (“Should there be a delay in releasing diagnostic results to patients?"), which identifies the mandatory 7-day delay as a policy that warrants re-examination. The authors have laid out the foundational issues, but the problems with this delay extend even further when viewed through the additional lenses. These principles are particularly important today, as the healthcare system rightly encourages individuals to move from being passive recipients of care to active managers of their own wellbeing.

Dylan A Mordaunt

As our population ages, so too do our doctors. But ageing physicians should still play an active and leading role in our health care workforce, writes Steve Robson.

Steve Robson