In today’s podcast we try and understand the impact that racial bias makes on variation in clinical care. For example, racialized patterns in the use of analgesia were brought to light over 20 years ago but are still occurring today. In research from the UK published in March it was found that women of African or South Asian extraction were significantly less likely to receive an epidural during vaginal birth, or instrumental assistance with the delivery. The direct reasons for this variation were not revealed by the study, and could simply reflect the preferences of different cultural groups ..read more

The first time most of us heard of monkeypox was in May 2022. The smallpox-like infection appeared to spring from nowhere and make its way through Europe then the Americas, almost entirely within the gay and bisexual community. But the first documented human case of mpox actually occurred in 1970 in Central Africa. It’s been endemic ever since, with tens of thousands of cases suspected to have occurred over the decades.  Last year’s mpox outbreak eclipsed those numbers in just a few months thanks to a newly evolved strain. The confirmed case count totalled over 86,000 all around the world ..read more

Medical and administrative records are normally collected to help the management of patients or institutions, but it can be time consuming to extract metrics useful for practice improvement. The field known as Practice Analytics seeks to transform these data and provide clinicians with a bird’s eye view of their case load and performance. Practice Analytics can draw attention to cases that stood out from the trend, not for any regulatory purpose, but simply to help clinicians reflect and improve. This could even act a shortcut to meeting the dreaded new requirements for CPD imposed by the medi ..read more

ADAPT is a prospective cohort study that has been following up COVID-19 patients since the earliest days of the pandemic. It has allowed researchers to track the emergence of long COVID, a syndrome that includes symptoms such as ongoing breathlessness, fatigue, chest tightness and "brain fog".   Over the course of the study, participants have contributed blood cells, cardiac and brain MRIs, tests of respiratory function and more. The research has uncovered molecular and functional correlates that are helping to explain long COVID. Meanwhile, clinicians at the St Vincents’ Hospital, Sydney ..read more

Pomegranate Health is seeking fresh ears on the Podcast Editorial Group.Responsibilities of group members are to > discuss new podcast topics > suggest themes to explore and people to interview > listen to audio drafts and provide feedback before publication Group communication is done informally by email and there's a time commitment of approximately 90 minutes per month. Please download an application form and return it before February 2023 to podcast@racp.edu.au. ****** In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a handful of international studies showed that there was increased ri ..read more

Pomegranate Health is seeking fresh ears on the Podcast Editorial Group.Responsibilities of group members are to > discuss new podcast topics > suggest themes to explore and people to interview > listen to audio drafts and provide feedback before publication Group communication is done informally by email and there's a time commitment of approximately 90 minutes per month. Please download an application form and return it before February 2023 to podcast@racp.edu.au.  ****** Hospitalisation rates for cirrhosis are increasing in Australia in part associated with the high prevalence ..read more

ADAPT is a prospective cohort study that has been following up COVID-19 patients since the earliest days of the pandemic. It has allowed researchers to track the emergence of long COVID, a syndrome that includes symptoms such as ongoing breathlessness, fatigue, chest tightness and "brain fog".   Over the course of the study, participants have contributed blood cells, cardiac and brain MRIs, tests of respiratory function and more. The research has uncovered molecular and functional correlates that are helping to explain long COVID. Meanwhile, clinicians at the St Vincents’ Hospital long CO ..read more

Clinical complications suffered by patients during hospital stays are assumed to be preventable and to provide some metric of quality of care. To assist in their understanding and mitigation the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare established a national programme to track hospital-acquired complications (HACs) in a formalised way. Comparison data can be found through the Health Roundtable reports and it’s been understood that hospitals with higher complication rates may have a have a lower standard of care. While the national HAC program has support from providers across ..read more

This is the first episode of a new format called “IMJ On-Air” inspired by the RACP’s Internal Medicine Journal. Each episode will be have as guest-host a section editor or reviewer of the IMJ interviewing authors of a recent article. Often these will be Clinical Perspectives reviews which summarise the latest in management of major medical disorders.  In this episode we have leading respiratory physicians from the Royal Melbourne Hospital presenting current best practice in the diagnosis and treatment of severe asthma. They why inhaled corticosteroids have become so ubiquitous and also th ..read more

The National Guideline for the Assessment and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Australia aspires to streamline referral pathways so that children can get the right help as early as possible. But despite the best intentions of many clinicians, there are drivers in the health system that make implementation difficult. There are constraints in the way specialists can be reimbursed for time spent managing a case through the diagnostic process. And the extent of developmental disorders in the community may not be reflected in the depth of training in this area. We also hear about some brea ..read more