Best The Royal Australasian College Of Physicians Podcasts (2024)

1
[Case Report] 32yo with abdominal pain two years after pancreas-kidney transplant 20:53

1d ago20:53

20:53

This case report has been developed by Trainees, to assist their peers with preparation of long-case presentations. It is not a fully-vetted Education resource but a “passion project” from editors of the Pomegranate Health podcasts. The case is that of a 32-year-old woman presenting with constant and dull abdominal pain that had been sudden in onse…

1
Ep109: Cultivating a rural workforce 45:41

23d ago45:41

45:41

Australia is a big continent and sparsely populated continent. 28 percent of Australians live in areas classified regional, rural or remote and their access to health services is much more limited. It’s estimated that between 2009 and 2011 there were 19,000 excess deaths in regional and remote areas as compared to the major cities. No doubt, socioe…

1
[Case Report] 68yo with cardiometabolic risk factors and transient monocular vision loss 32:10

2M ago32:10

32:10

Pomegranate [Case Report] is a Q&A style podcast developed by trainees, for trainees. In our debut episode, we hear about w a who man presented to the emergency department reporting sudden onset vision loss in his right eye lasting several hours. He was 68 year old with a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Three differential diagnoses being consi…

1
[Journal Club] Baricitinib immune therapy for new onset type 1 diabetes 40:44

3M ago40:44

40:44

Type 1 diabetes has a very high treatment burden in terms of direct costs, inconvenience and lost productivity for patients and their carers. Further, all the glucose checking, hormone replacement and consults don’t abolish the vascular complications associated with poor glycaemic control. Only in the last few years has it been possible to pharmaco…

1
Ep106: The whiskey fix and the apple of Granada 30:50

3M ago30:50

30:50

Today’s guests are the hosts of This Medical Life, a wonderful podcast that delves into the archives of medical history. Dr Travis Brown describes the period after World War I when the Spanish Flu was killing tens of millions around the world. In the USA, whiskey was thought to be a powerful prophylactic but distribution was not an easy thing. Late…

1
Ep105: When parents and paediatrics clash 49:07

4M ago49:07

49:07

Last November an NHS Hospital Trust in Nottingham sought permission from the UK High Court to withdraw life support from a seven-month old girl called Indi Gregory. The devastated parents did not want to give up on her although they were advised there was no hope of treatment for her profound developmental disability. The family and the medical tea…

1
[IMJ On-Air] Is the jury still out on omega-3 supplementation? 25:44

5M ago25:44

25:44

The theory that certain fatty acids are essential to the diet and associated with reduced cardiovascular risk has been controversial since it was floated in the 1950s. In 1971 Danish researchers published the results from a cross-sectional study of Inuit people living on the west coast of Greenland. They ate a fish-based diet rich in polyunsaturate…

1
[IMJ On-Air] HepatoCare: a model for palliative and supportive care in advanced cirrhosis 39:32

7M ago39:32

39:32

Median survival for patients diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis is around 2 years and quality of life is poor. Fewer than a quarter of such patients receive referrals to palliative care and advanced care plans are also rare. Existing research from abroad suggests that hepatology staff aren’t familiar with referral criteria and assume that palliative…

1
Ep102: Staying on script with semaglutide 54:45

8M ago54:45

54:45

Semaglutide, branded as Ozempic or Wegovy, is an analogue of glucagon-like peptide 1 which has glucose-dependent effects on insulin secretion. In this episode we discuss how semaglutide performs as an antihyperglycaemic agent compared to previous GLP-1 analogues and the soon-to-be launched tirzepatide. This dual agonist also binds receptors to gluc…

1
Ep101: Setting the standard for workforce wellbeing 56:26

10M ago56:26

56:26

We’ve known for a decade that about 50 percent of doctors meet the criteria for burnout, and the figure is up to 70 percent among trainees. But organisations have been left to come up with their own solutions to this, the result being that many simply offer band aid solutions rather than systemic ones. Unforgiving work conditions pose a problem for…

1
Ep100: Conversations with ChatGPT 36:44

11M ago36:44

36:44

This is the final episode in a five-part series about artificial intelligence in medicine. We start by weighing up the costs and benefits of automation in a health system that’s increasingly pushed beyond capacity. One of the biggest time sinks for health practitioners is filling out and searching through medical records. Some of this could be perf…

1
Ep99: When AI goes wrong 38:43

11M ago38:43

38:43

This is the fourth part in a series on artificial intelligence in medicine and we try and unpick the causes and consequences of adverse events resulting from this technology. Our guest David Lyell is a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (Macquarie University) who has published a first-of-its kind audit of adverse event…

1
[IMJ On-Air] A tiger in the mallee: Victoria’s JEV cluster 43:46

12M ago43:46

43:46

On the 28th of January 2022 a 75-year-old man was admitted to the regional Albury Wodonga Health Service with a high fever and Parkinsonian symptoms. The patient spent over a week in intensive care, but brain scans did not reveal an obvious aetiology and assays for a range of pathogens came up negative. When serology eventually revealed the presenc…

1
Ep97: The governance of AI 34:25

1y ago34:25

34:25

This is the third part of a series on artificial intelligence in medicine. Previously we explained how to train and test machine learning models that assist in decision-making, and then how to iron out ergonomic friction points in the clinical workflow. We’ve mentioned how deep learning neural networks are more capable than classical models at deal…

1
Ep96: The ergonomics of AI 41:48

1y ago41:48

41:48

The allure of having devices and tasks assisted by artificial intelligence is that they will help overcome some of the natural limits of human cognition with regards to working memory and attention. And in helping with the mundane tasks, AI can buy clinicians back time to spend with the complex patients who really need it. But the way all this pans…

1
Ep95: Machine Learning 101 37:33

1y ago37:33

37:33

AI-assisted healthcare is reaching maturity in many applications and could alleviate some of the capacity gap increasingly faced by health systems . Over the next three podcasts we focus on artificial intelligence tools designed to assist directly with clinical practice. Most commonly reported on are the algorithms capable of pattern recognition on…

1
Ep94: Facing up to racial bias 58:59

1y ago58:59

58:59

In today’s podcast we try and understand the impact that racial bias makes on variation in clinical care. For example, racialized patterns in the use of analgesia were brought to light over 20 years ago but are still occurring today. In research from the UK published in March it was found that women of African or South Asian extraction were signifi…

1
Ep93: The rise and fall of mpox 42:38

1y ago42:38

42:38

The first time most of us heard of monkeypox was in May 2022. The smallpox-like infection appeared to spring from nowhere and make its way through Europe then the Americas, largely within the gay and bisexual community. But the first documented human case of mpox actually occurred in 1970 in Central Africa and it’s been endemic ever since. Last yea…

1
Ep92: Data-driven practice improvement 44:42

1+ y ago44:42

44:42

Medical and administrative records are normally collected to help the management of patients or institutions, but it can be time consuming to extract metrics useful for practice improvement. The field known as Practice Analytics seeks to transform these data and provide clinicians with a bird’s eye view of their case load and performance. Practice …

1
[IMJ On-Air] Hyperglycaemia and COVID-19 35:22

1+ y ago35:22

35:22

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a handful of international studies showed that there was increased risk of adverse outcomes in hospitalised patients comorbid for diabetes. Odds ratios for mortality conferred by pre-existing diabetes ranged from 1.5 to 3.6. What this relationship might be in Australia was not known until researchers in M…

1
[IMJ On-Air] High readmission rates in cirrhotic patients 39:02

1+ y ago39:02

39:02

Hospitalisation rates for cirrhosis are increasing in Australia in part associated with the high prevalence of obesity and subsequent non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. More concerning still is the frequency with which discharged patients are readmitted within 30 days. One systematic review put the average readmission rate at 26%, but the studies c…

1
Ep89: What we know about long COVID 41:22

1+ y ago41:22

41:22

ADAPT is a prospective cohort study that has been following up COVID-19 patients since the earliest days of the pandemic. It has allowed researchers to track the emergence of long COVID, a syndrome that includes symptoms such as ongoing breathlessness, fatigue, chest tightness and "brain fog". Over the course of the study, participants have contrib…

1
[IMJ On-Air] Making sense of HACs 38:33

1+ y ago38:33

38:33

Clinical complications suffered by patients during hospital stays are assumed to be preventable and to provide some metric of quality of care. To assist in their understanding and mitigation the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare established a national programme to track hospital-acquired complications (HACs) in a formalised …

1
[IMJ On-Air] Managing cannabinoid use in palliative care 44:00

1+ y ago44:00

44:00

About two thirds of Australians use complementary and alternative medicines but only around half of these people will mention it to their doctor. Patients in palliative care settings may be more inclined than most to try therapies from outside the box. But they are also more vulnerable to side effects and interactions given that their drug metaboli…

1
[IMJ On-Air] Recent advances in asthma management 46:54

2y ago46:54

46:54

This is the first episode of a new format called “IMJ On-Air” inspired by the RACP’s Internal Medicine Journal. Each episode will be have as guest-host a section editor or reviewer of the IMJ interviewing authors of a recent article. Often these will be Clinical Perspectives reviews which summarise the latest in management of major medical disorder…

1
Ep85: The ASD Odyssey- a reply 40:34

2y ago40:34

40:34

The National Guideline for the Assessment and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Australia aspires to streamline referral pathways so that children can get the right help as early as possible. But despite the best intentions of many clinicians, there are drivers in the health system that make implementation difficult. There are constraints i…

1
Ep84: The ASD Odyssey 39:57

2y ago39:57

39:57

The average age at which autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed four, though signs are often present well before that. Even where families and GPs may have concerns early in a child’s development, it can take a year or more for a consult with a paediatrician to become available. There are similar waiting lists to see other allied health and sub-spec…

1
Ep83: Loving Medicine Again 41:35

2y ago41:35

41:35

In the last episode we heard some powerful examples of the challenges faced by some practitioners in medicine. Every situation has its idiosyncrasies, but most people start out with a passion for what they’re doing. In today’s podcast we hear from doctor-career coaches Ashe Coxon and Sarah Dalton who help medics solve the workplace challenges, and …

1
Ep82: Coming back from Burnout— Congress 2022 49:04

2y ago49:04

49:04

Not a day goes by that there isn’t a headline about the overstretched health service and the struggling professionals within it. It isn’t COVID that has created this situation. The pandemic was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. At the RACP Congress in May, ENT surgeon Eric Levi explained why burnout should be considered not as a mental he…

1
Ep81: Advocacy from the Top 19:53

2y ago19:53

19:53

In episode 78 we heard from some physicians who found themselves taking up the role of advocate, not just for their own patients but for broader system change. And health policy lobbyist Patrick Tobin explained how physicians and the College as whole can best get the attention of parliamentarians. For example, the RACP’s Healthy Climate Futures cam…

1
Ep80: Healthcare in a Volatile Climate 33:27

2y ago33:27

33:27

The globe has already warmed by more than one degree Celsius over pre-industrial levels and is on track to exceed two degrees by the end of the century. It doesn’t sound like a lot but this will have profound effects on human health with Australia being particularly vulnerable. Most obviously, Australia’s biggest cities will become furnaces in summ…

1
Ep79: Melanoma vs the Double-Edged Sword 46:58

2+ y ago46:58

46:58

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionised care for patients with advanced melanoma and other cancers. These days around half of patients with unresectable metastatic melanoma can expect to live to five years after a regime of agents such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab. That’s up to ten times the survival rate of patients a decade ago, when t…

1
Ep78: The Advocate’s Journey 38:36

2+ y ago38:36

38:36

The core work of being a physician is demanding enough. But if you’re seeing patients come in day after day with ailments that have social determinants behind them, you may start to feel like Sisyphus; heaving that boulder up the hill only to have to start from the bottom every time it slips your grasp. Surely it would be better to change those soc…

1
Ep77: Deciding with Children 46:16

2+ y ago46:16

46:16

This episode is shared from the Essential Ethics podcast produced at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. It is presented by paediatric respiratory physician John Massie and clinical ethicist Lynn Gillam who are respectively the Clinical Lead and Academic Director of the Children's Bioethics Centre. In a series titled “Deciding with Children…

1
Ep76: Making Amends- Medical Injury Part 3 40:24

2+ y ago40:24

40:24

This is the third podcast in a series about medical injury. First we talked about what victims of injury want to hear from the health system after such an event. And then we discussed the guilt and compromised professional identity that doctors might feel when they’ve been involved in a patient harm. We also heard how fear of medicolegal suits is a…

1
Ep75: Feeling Guilty- Medical Injury Part 2 51:29

2+ y ago51:29

51:29

In the last episode we talked about what patients or their families want to hear after a iatrogenic injury. Despite best practice standards for open disclosure, this occurs far less often that it should. The reluctance from health practitioners to be more transparent is in part due to a misplaced fear of exposure to liability, but perhaps the great…

1
Ep74: Saying Sorry- Medical Injury Part 1 45:38

2+ y ago45:38

45:38

Medical injury occurs at a rate of about 12 per cent of admissions, and errors without consequence at a higher rate still. According to Australian and New Zealand guidance documents, disclosure of error “is a patient right, anchored in professional ethics, considered good clinical practice, and is part of the care continuum.” But many practitioners…

1
Ep73: Communicating a Pandemic 49:13

3y ago49:13

49:13

There are many layers of public health interventions that can reduce the rate of transmission of the novel coronavirus. Social distancing, mask wearing, lockdowns and vaccines each nudge the reproduction number down. But you need all of them working together to make a significant impact, and that means you need the community on board. In this podca…

1
Ep72: Modelling a pandemic 57:03

3y ago57:03

57:03

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to public attention, like never before, the work of public health physicians as well as epidemiologists, statisticians and computer modelers. The crisis also shown how hard it is to take decisions affecting the lives of millions when there is so little evidence to go on. Models of viral spread and interventions to …

1
Ep71: Voluntary Assisted Dying—what have we learned? 46:39

3y ago46:39

46:39

In 2017, Victoria was the first state in Australia to pass voluntary assisted legislation and has been followed by Western Australia, Tasmania and now South Australia. Aotearoa-New Zealand passed its End-of-life Choice Bill two years ago and that will go live in November. This podcast draws on the experience of some very committed Victorian clinici…

1
Ep70: Zeroing in on “the renal troponin” 42:08

3y ago42:08

42:08

Acute Kidney Injury makes a greater contribution to early mortality than acute myocardial infarction and it's been argued we should consider the concept of “kidney attack” to give it the weight that it deserves. But the presentation of kidney injury isn’t as overt or timely as a heart attack often is. While serum creatinine is a pretty good reporte…

1
Ep69: Gendered Medicine—Funding and Research 43:51

3y ago43:51

43:51

This is the third and final part of our series on gendered medicine. We step back and look at the way that health care and research are funded. It’s been said that the health needs of women are undervalued by our existing fee-for-service model, down to individual item numbers in the Medicare Benefits Schedule. There’s also evidence that disease pre…

1
Ep68: Gendered Medicine—Pain 50:06

3+ y ago50:06

50:06

Gender can be considered a social determinant of health, in the different pressures and expectations it puts on women and men. For example, the taboos around menstruation are so profound that many young women are dangerously naïve about their own reproductive health. Meanwhile, endometriosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other conditions associate…

1
Ep67: Boosting Public Health in the Indo-Pacific 44:09

3+ y ago44:09

44:09

This is the fourth and final part in our series on Global Health Security. Australia’s Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security was launched in 2017 to provide development assistance to health services as far-flung as Fiji, Cambodia and Timor L’este. Its mission is always tailored to the needs of the partner government. In Indonesia it has provided …

1
Ep66: Gendered Medicine—Heart Disease 41:16

3+ y ago41:16

41:16

We traditionally think of cardiovascular disease as a man’s problem, but it’s the leading cause of death for women as well as men in most of the industrialized world. Despite great advances in the management of heart disease in recent years, women are still not getting the same quality of care as men. Readmissions and mortality following an acute m…

1
Ep65: A New Script for Global Public Health 42:25

3+ y ago42:25

42:25

In this episode we present some provocative solutions to problems presented in the previous two stories.We heard about pharmaceutical patents, and how embedded intellectual property law is in global trade relations. There’s this fundamental assumption that innovation occurs thanks only to the vigour of the private sector and the plucky entrepreneur…

1
Ep64: Big Pharma and the People’s Vaccine 44:33

3+ y ago44:33

44:33

This is part 2 in our series on global public health and focuses on the impact of intellectual property laws on the development and distribution of pharmaceuticals. The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated a frenzy of vaccine development never seen before, but also examples of hoarding, price hikes and vaccine nationalism. The crisis has brought togeth…

1
Ep63: the WHO’s Biggest Test 40:49

4y ago40:49

40:49

During the COVID-19 crisis there has been some criticism of the World Health Organisation as to whether it declared a pandemic soon enough or covered up for China’s failings. But few commentators have explained the role and responsibilities it shares with its member states in dealing with a pandemic. A prototype of the International Health Regulati…

1
Ep62: Essential Ethics in Adolescent Health 42:07

4y ago42:07

42:07

In episode 59 we shared a sampler of the Essential Ethics podcast from the Children's Bioethics Centre, at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. A couple of cases studies were presented to help us define “the Zone of Parental Discretion” – a space in which decision-making about a child’s medical care is conceded to parents even if it’s not opti…

1
Ep61: Delirium Part 2- Prevention and Management 34:16

4y ago34:16

34:16

In the previous episode we discussed the presentations and screening of delirium, as well as the risk factors. Just as important as these medical and iatrogenic precipitants are a host of environmental triggers that are highly modifiable. Anything that contributes to a person’s disorientation and discomfort can increase the likelihood of a delirium…

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