There’s been a swell of advocacy lately around breast density, which increases cancer risk while reducing the sensitivity of mammograms.  The FDA in the US has recently mandated that women be notified by mammogram providers if they have dense breasts, giving them the opportunity to arrange supplemental testing.   But BreastScreen Australia’s 2020 position statement does not recommend the routine recording of breast density or the provision of supplemental testing for women with dense breasts.   Professor Vivienne Milch, the government’s medical advisor on screening pol ..read more

South Australia’s long covid clinic loves GPs and keeps them close. Dr Angela Molga is a clinical pharmacologist and geriatrician at the long covid clinic at Royal Adelaide Hospital. “We engage the GPs very early on, from the moment we receive the referrals. The patients are kept updated on the length of the waitlist and we also send them out resources specifically around self-rehabilitation,” she says. Dr Molga says the average age of the patients who were seen in the South Australian clinic last year was 47 years old. “These were previously healthy people. Little contact with the healthcare ..read more

What do you get when you cross advice from a health economist with that from a leading physiotherapist? Increased revenue and a better patient experience, say our guests on today’s episode of The Tea Room. Scott Willis is president of the Australian Physiotherapists Association and a proud Palawa man. He says better results come from general practices who genuinely embrace allied health as part of the team. “If you have social events, invite them. Let them be part of your strategy of the practice. They might sometimes see things from a different angle and add value to where practice is he ..read more

Professor Rob Moodie describes himself as “an eternal optimist”. He needs to be.  A long and distinguished career in public health has seen Professor Moodie tackle the “big four” industries – alcohol, tobacco, junk food, and fossil fuel – and these days he’s added a fifth to the list, gambling.  Those industries and corporate multinationals make up a large slice, but by no means all, of the commercial determinants of health – defined by Professor Moodie and his colleagues as “the products and practices of some commercial actors—notably the largest transnational corporations—[that are ..read more

Medical school equips doctors to do many things. Managing LGBTQI+ patients probably isn’t one of them. Dr Asiel Adan Sanchez is a GP and clinical tutor at the university of Melbourne. He knows first-hand how clinical environments can be off putting for people who are queer, trans and gender diverse. He’s also created a solution for that called Wavelength - a learning tool that builds clinician skills and makes general practices safer for LGBTQI+ folk. Dr Sanchez gives a quick masterclass on the simple and practical ways to take away the “awkward interactions” that occur in many medical environ ..read more

Struggling to hang on to doctor staff? This episode offers more than a few gems of wisdom from the most unlikely location.  Today, The Tea Room travels to Crystal Brook, a rural town 200 kilometres north of Adelaide. There we meet Dr Richard McKinnon co- owner of Crystal Brook Medical Practice – a small-town clinic that is anything but small. After 35 years in this farming community, he knows the hacks to running a thriving practice that allows plenty of time to play golf. The secret, it appears, is knowing how to retain registrars.  “The current generation, quite rightly and no crit ..read more

When Professor John Skerritt first joined the Department of Health he was tasked with setting up a joint regulatory framework between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.  “But then the government changed, and it was no, no, we don’t want to do that,” he told TMR in an exclusive podcast.  Instead, Professor Skerritt set about making the biggest regulatory reforms “in 30 to 50 years” via the establishment of the current Therapeutic Goods Administration.    “We had to get on top of such issues as the use of strong opioids and so forth, things that were really important fo ..read more

Treatment options are expanding rapidly for high cholesterol patients, says today's guest on The Tea Room.  Professor Steve Nicholls, director of the new Victorian Heart Hospital, shares the latest in clinical trials and reveals a possible heart disease vaccine.  “There's an approach now, in clinical trials, that uses fairly old-fashioned vaccine technology but instead of trying to go after some antimicrobial target, the vaccine is simply targeting (a cholesterol-inducing protein) PCSK9,” he says.  He says that research advances are coming at cholesterol treatment from all angle ..read more

It’s only March and politics already has a full dance card for GPs to foxtrot around.  Luckily for The Tea Room, political reporter Holly Payne steps in today to lead us through the top stories of the year so far.   First up, Holly spills the tea on her investigations into Ozempic and the marketing antics of manufacturer Novo Nordisk. Holly says the big pharma has now been suspended from a leading UK industry group for promotional misdemeanours.   “Novo Nordis partly funded an event that promoted one of their semaglutide drugs but they did not mention any side effects ..read more

Professor Louise Baur wants obesity taken out of the health portfolio and put in the laps of PM Anthony Albanese and his Cabinet colleagues.  “Sometimes I think the best approach would be to take [obesity] out of the responsibility of the Minister of Health and put it squarely in the Prime Minister and Cabinet, because the solutions don't lie, in general, with health,” Professor Baur told TMR.  “Or put it in Treasury, because it's something that costs,” she said.  Professor Baur is president of the World Obesity Federation, and director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence ..read more