Volume 194 - Issue 1
In Other Journals
Author: Ann T Gregory
Med J Aust 2011; 194 (1): 47. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2011.tb04147.x
Published online: 3 January 2011
Published online: 3 January 2011
Fat chance?
Doctors should be brought before professionalism committees for any callous treatment of their obese colleagues, suggests a US cardiologist. In Memoirs of an obese physician, Majdan recounted various unprofessional comments he had received from other doctors when he was overweight or obese: “Hey, hey, hey, it’s Fat Albert!” one surgeon had bellowed, while some fellow residents had asked whether his lab coats were made by Omar the Tentmaker, and another had wanted to borrow his white intern trousers so that she could project slides onto them for a housestaff skit that she was organising. This constant insensitive attitude of colleagues, who preached empathy to their students and resident doctors, seemed hypocritical; Majdan called for professionalism towards obese patients to start with physicians.
Ann Intern Med 2010; 153: 686-687
Asbestos wars
Currently, Australia has the world’s highest national incidence of malignant mesothelioma — approximately 700 to 750 cases per year. Kao and colleagues say that its increasing incidence has lagged asbestos production and importation by two to three decades, so the incidence will continue to rise over the next 15 years, peaking around 2014-2021. In a review article, they outline the clinical management of this tragic, potentially preventable, aggressive cancer. They conclude by sharing their grave concerns that a number of countries, including some in the Asia-Pacific region, still mine and export asbestos, with the potential to lead to an epidemic in the decades to come.
Intern Med J 2010; 40: 742-750
No laughing matter
Nitrous oxide (N2O) — well known as “laughing gas” — may be making a comeback in an operating theatre near you, suggest Rammohan and colleagues. They say that, some decades ago, N2O was the preferred gas for creating a pneumoperitoneum in laparoscopic surgery, until two anecdotal, unsubstantiated cases of combustion and explosion during electrocoagulation via laparoscopy were reported. In 2009, they conducted a single blind case-controlled study in nearly 80 patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery, comparing the effects of N2O with those of carbon dioxide (CO2) as insufflating agents. They found that N2O had several advantages over CO2, including less postoperative pain and a decreased risk of cardiovascular side effects.
Int J Surg Online, 5 Nov 2010
One in a hundred
Prompt attention is needed to dispel the myth that developing countries can wait to deal with tobacco-related disease until they have dealt with infectious disease, according to international researchers. Öberg and colleagues recently reported their estimates for 2004 of the worldwide burden of disease from exposure to second-hand smoke. Passive smoking was responsible for about 603 000 deaths that year — or about one death in a hundred. About one in four of these deaths occurred in children. Passive smoking was also responsible for much non-fatal morbidity, including more than five million lower respiratory tract infections in children younger than 5 years of age.
Lancet Online, 26 Nov 2010
Temporary territory
General practitioner retention is an important issue in medical workforce planning, and especially so in the Northern Territory, Australia — between 2001 and 2006, a volume of GPs equivalent to 60% of the total workforce moved in and out of the Territory. Auer and Carson interviewed 19 GPs who had mostly been in the Territory for less than 3 years. They found that, for these doctors, working in the Territory is about “adjusting” — that is, temporarily setting aside a range of values and ambitions, including longer-term career ambitions, so as to benefit from the experience of “difference” in the Territory. It’s not about “place attachment”, which is the sense that a particular location is a desirable residence and likely to remain so into the future. However, various strategies aimed at increasing adjustment skills could encourage doctors to stay for longer or to make repeat visits to the Territory.
Rural and Remote Health 2010; 10: 1476 (Online)