Neurosurgeon Rondhir Jithoo has led an extraordinary life, growing up in South Africa with a medical father and deeply thinking anthropologist mother. He obtained his medical degree from the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at the University of Natal and trained in neurosurgery at South Africa’s Wentworth Hospital where he received the Registrars Prize from the South African Society of Neurosurgeons and obtained his neurosurgery fellowship in 2000.  After relocating to Australia, he was...

The health and welfare workforces deliver diverse services through many private and public organisations. Combined these services employ more than 1 million people of which there were more than 642 000 health practitioners working in their registered professions in Australia in 2020. This included 105 300 medical practitioners, 350,000 nurses and midwives, 21,500 dental practitioners and 166,000 allied health professionals. In this podcast we will consider more generally the positions of...

Clinical problems related to the integument are very common and contribute up to 15% of all general practitioner presentations. Humans are predisposed to a multitude of skin diseases ranging from acne and atopic dermatitis to psoriasis, autoimmune diseases such as SLE, vasculitis, skin cancers, viral exanthems, drug eruptions and external manifestations of internal disease - which in the gastroenterology world have erythema nodosum and pyoderma gangrenosum as interesting examples of these....

Clinical problems related to the integument are very common and contribute up to 15% of all general practitioner presentations. Humans are predisposed to a multitude of skin diseases ranging from acne and atopic dermatitis to psoriasis, autoimmune diseases such as SLE, vasculitis, skin cancers, viral exanthems, drug eruptions and external manifestations of internal disease - which in the gastroenterology world have erythema nodosum and pyoderma gangrenosum as interesting examples of...

From the RACGP Health of the Nation report; depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances are amongst the most commonly seen presentations of mental disorders in general practice. About 1 in 8 people in the world live with a mental disorder which often involves significant disturbances in thinking, emotional regulation, or behaviour.  Globally it is estimated that 5% of adults suffer from depression, affecting women a little more than men.  Anxiety disorders affect a similar number of...

From the RACGP Health of the Nation report; depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances are amongst the most commonly seen presentations of mental disorders in general practice. About 1 in 8 people in the world live with a mental disorder which often involves significant disturbances in thinking, emotional regulation, or behaviour.  Globally it is estimated that 5% of adults suffer from depression, affecting women a little more than men.  Anxiety disorders affect a similar number of...

Over the past decade there has been an emergence of literature pointing to potential clinical benefits for a range of disease states through the adoption of slow breathing techniques. The popularity worldwide of the Wim Hof method adopted from eastern techniques has done much to pique interest.  Notably the belief and practice of controlling one’s breath to both restore and enhance health is not new however and has been practised for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. Pranayama...

Over the past decade there has been an emergence of literature pointing to potential clinical benefits for a range of disease states through the adoption of slow breathing techniques. The popularity worldwide of the Wim Hof method adopted from eastern techniques has done much to pique interest.  Notably the belief and practice of controlling one’s breath to both restore and enhance health is not new however and has been practised for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. Pranayama...

The first fleet comprised of 11 ships and 1420 people arrived in Australia’s Botany Bay under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip in January 1788 after an 8-month journey from Portsmouth. On the voyage there were 48 deaths and 28 births but no recorded serious illnesses such as smallpox or tuberculosis. The colonists subsequently resettled in port Phillip Bay and quickly had to learn to adapt to an environment that was as foreign to them as it must have been for the local indigenous...

The first fleet comprised of 11 ships and 1420 people arrived in Australia’s Botany Bay under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip in January 1788 after an 8-month journey from Portsmouth. On the voyage there were 48 deaths and 28 births but no recorded serious illnesses such as smallpox or tuberculosis. The colonists subsequently resettled in port Phillip Bay and quickly had to learn to adapt to an environment that was as foreign to them as it must have been for the local indigenous...

Emotional intelligence (EI) also known as EQ, is the ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions in positive ways to communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict as well as to relieve stress. Emotional intelligence helps build stronger relationships, achieve personal career goals, and interact more positively at work. It gives us an ability to join intelligence, empathy, and emotions to enhance thought and understanding of interpersonal...

We are dedicating this podcast to the memory of Professor Lawrie Powell, both a gentleman, mentor and giant in the field of hepatology and whose very significant contributions to our understanding of hemochromatosis laid down a firm foundation of knowledge and insight for everyone practicing internal medicine. It is upon his shoulders that much further research in the field of hemochromatosis and hepatology generally has prospered. Haemochromatosis is the most common autosomal recessive...

The corner stone of cardiovascular disease prevention is the identification of high-risk asymptomatic individuals. In this regard coronary artery calcium is a highly specific marker of atherosclerosis and can be quantified using non contrast CT scanning which provides an accurate measure of atherosclerotic burden. Coronary artery disease is the single leading cause of disease morbidity and mortality in Australia and is responsible for approximately one in 10 deaths furthermore half the...

Interventional radiology is an innovative and rapidly growing medical profession that enables radiologists to blend clinical interaction, procedural work, and imaging. It stands as an exciting domain within modern medicine, offering precise, targeted treatments for complex diseases and conditions throughout the body. Interventional radiologists seamlessly integrate various specialty interests, including gastroenterology, vascular surgery, neurosurgery, oncology, pain management, gynecology,...

Headache is an extremely common symptom, and collectively, headache disorders rank among the most prevalent nervous system disorders. Approximately 95% of the general population have experienced a headache at some point in their lives, with a one-year prevalence rate of about one in every two adults. Headache accounts for up to 1 in 10 general practitioner consultations, remains a frequent reason for neurology referrals, and in Europe, constitutes up to 4% of emergency department visits, with...

The World Health Organisation estimates that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is anticipated to result in approximately 250,000 additional deaths annually. These fatalities may arise from issues such as malnutrition, and heat stress, as well as diseases like malaria and infectious diarrhoea. The impact of a planet warming at a recorded rate of 0.08 degrees centigrade per decade since 1880, accelerating to 0.18 degrees centigrade since 1981, poses threats to human lives and health across...

Hypermobile joints were noted by Hippocrates as long ago as 400 BCE and are common, occurring in about 10-25 % of the population. In a minority of patients’ pain and injury results suggest that the clinical findings may reflect a condition referred to as hypermobility spectrum disorder, a polygenic connective tissue syndrome affecting between 1:500 to 1:600 people. This syndrome involves extreme joint flexibility often associated with joint pains, tends to run in families and is more common...

Acid-Base theory is often considered a difficult subject. As long ago as 1962, Creese et al wrote in the Lancet … “There is a bewildering variety of pseudoscientific jargon in medical writing on this subject “My suspicion is that some degree of confusion and thus avoidance of the subject continues to this day. Hopefully, this podcast conversation will resonate with some of our listeners and smooth out any misunderstandings should they exist. As a background, Bronsted and Lowrys definitions...

Acid-Base theory is often considered a difficult subject. As long ago as 1962, Creese et al wrote in the Lancet … “There is a bewildering variety of pseudoscientific jargon in medical writing on this subject “My suspicion is that some degree of confusion and thus avoidance of the subject continues to this day. Hopefully, this podcast conversation will resonate with some of our listeners and smooth out any misunderstandings should they exist. As a background, Bronsted and Lowrys definitions...

Acute Rheumatic fever (ARF) is a multisystem disease caused by an immunological response to Group A streptococcal infection leading to Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and is responsible for 250,000 deaths per year worldwide, predominantly in young people. It is estimated that 15 million people across the globe have evidence of Rheumatic heart disease. In Australia, the estimated incidence is reflective of ethnicity with 65 per 100 000 infections among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander...

Recently, I had the privilege of being introduced to Dr. David Stewart, Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and a medical oncologist. He was kind enough to forward a copy of his excellent book, "A Short Primer on Why Cancer Still Sucks," in which he reviews various aspects of cancer medicine and raises important questions about the incidence of malignancies, treatment strategies, and the sometimes-flawed way healthcare systems and bureaucracies deliver outcomes. Ultimately, it...

Recently a team from the Monash Department of Diabetes published in the Nature Journal ‘ Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy ‘ how their research could lead to the regeneration of insulin in pancreatic stem cells. As their findings could potentially benefit the 130,000 Type I diabetics in Australia and 30 per cent of Type II diabetics who are insulin dependent it received significant media attention. Diabetes is the fastest-growing illness in Australia and about 500 million people have...

Leukemias are malignant progressive disease in which the bone marrow and other blood-forming organs produce increased numbers of immature or abnormal leucocytes. This is thought to occur after somatically acquired genetic mutations lead to dysregulation and clonal expansion of progenitor cells. Whilst most leukemias involve white blood cells, occasionally other cells are the primary leukemia cells such as red blood cells or platelets.   As disease progression occurs, suppression of normal...

Leukemias are malignant progressive disease in which the bone marrow and other blood-forming organs produce increased numbers of immature or abnormal leucocytes. This is thought to occur after somatically acquired genetic mutations lead to dysregulation and clonal expansion of progenitor cells. Whilst most leukemias involve white blood cells, occasionally other cells are the primary leukemia cells such as red blood cells or platelets.   As disease progression occurs, suppression of normal...