May 2013

The MASON REVIEW on rural workforce was released in the past few days and the Executive Summary at least is worth a read. I think it’s generally on the money – a big emphasis on encouraging a rural generalist pathway, to de-emphasise costly specialist services in favour of effective primary care and to encourage more […]

Over the weekend just gone, Chris Nickson of Lifeinthefastlane threw down a challenge – the idea of a debate of ‘real anaesthetists don’t need checklists’ between Dr Minh le Cong and myself at next year’s SMACC14 conference on the Gold Coast (#SMACCGOLD). Not withstanding the obvious inequalities between Minh’s masterful martial arts technique and my

I am delighted that the SMACC 2013 podcast is out – you can download via iTunes from this link. First up is Scott Weingart’s excellent talk on bringing “upstairs care, downstairs” – addressing the need to bring high-level critical care skills to the emergency room, for which FOAMed such as emcrit.org and other blogs have

My last post on GANFYD syndrome created some questions about the whole sick note system in Australia, which are perhaps worth exploring. Let me be absolutely clear – doctors have no problem issuing sick notes when appropriate – such as the patient who presents with a lower respiratory tract infection and, at the time of

No surprises in the recent Budget, with a huge deficit and not surprisingly significant cuts to be made across the board. Given the ever-increasing cost in health, some deductions have been announced, including – an increase in the Medicare safety net to $2ooo payable by patients before the Govt provides assistance – freezing of Medicare