Author: healthprofessionalradio

Overview

• The Rural Doctors Association of NSW (RDANSW) Management Committee will recommend to all rural doctors that they do not accept additional GP Registrars until the popular Prevocational General Practice Placement Program (PGPPP) axed in the recent Commonwealth budget is restored.

• AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler, said today that the highly-respected Byte from the Beach report from the University of Sydney provides further evidence that the Government’s proposed co-payment for GP, radiology, and pathology services, and increased co-payments for medicines, will hit vulnerable patients the hardest.

• Rolling stoppages planned at WA hospitals from today have been delayed by a week in a move the Health Services Union (HSU) says gives Health Minister Kim Hames time to “do the right thing” in regards to their call for a better pay deal.

Overview

• A US study published in the journal Science shows that most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous

• Researchers at the Australian National University have uncovered the exact way pain relief drugs work on the body, which could lead to truly targeted pain medication.

• Two oyster growers on Tasmania’s east coast have stopped production after the discovery of a shellfish toxin in the area.

Overview

• A disfiguring growth has been removed from the face of a seven-year-old Filipino boy by a team of surgeons at Melbourne’s Monash Children’s Hospital.

• A US study has found the gene that allows Tibetans to cope with life at high altitudes came from an extinct species of human.

• The state and federal governments will spend $4 million trying to eradicate, two-disease-spreading mosquito species from the Torres Strait.

Overview

• A discovery by Australian immunologists, uncovering an additional role for antibody-making ‘B cells’, is considered important enough by the American Association of Immunologists to rank it among the top 10% of articles in the latest issue of The Journal of Immunology, off the press YESTERDAY today.
  

• AMA President, A/Prof Brian Owler, said today that recent advice from the Department of Human Services (DHS) that practice nurse time does not count in Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Health Assessment items undermines team-based primary health care arrangements.

• Kangaroos use their tail as an extra leg when they walk, according to new research. according to Professor Terry Dawson of the University of New South Wales and colleagues have previously shown that during hopping, the kangaroo tail acts as a counterbalance, and as a spring to store up energy for the next bounce.

Overview

• It is predicted Australia will see a growing trend towards doctors actively ‘prescribing’ health apps to monitor complex health issues.

• The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has labelled a push by retail giant Woolworths to conduct in-store health checks as an attempt to “hoodwink” shoppers.

• The amount of plastic floating on the ocean surface is less than expected according to scientists who have mapped plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.