Aust Fam Physician
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Each year bushfire threatens Australia's rural, forest, and urban-rural areas. Australia's rural fire fighters work to curtail this threat in hot, smoky conditions, often at risk to their physical health. General practitioners, especially in rural areas, can help preserve the health of fire fighters during the fire season by understanding the stressors they face on the fireground. ⋯ General practitioners can help preserve fire fighters' health during bushfire suppression in a number of ways, including: identifying fire fighters at risk of cardiac distress during physical labour and educating them about the early warning signs; advocating regular exercise; discouraging smoking; and promoting the benefits of maintaining fluid, carbohydrate, and electrolyte levels during a shift.
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Narrative, metaphor and image are habitual forms of making sense of the world and can be powerfully harnessed for professional development. Writing is a particular form of expression and communication that allows practitioners to speedily identify and engage with their most sensitively critical aspects of practice, and forms the basis for critical, confidential, trusted discussion. This article gives underlying theories and dominant practices of reflective writing as a professional development activity.
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Comparative Study
Management of skin cancer in Australia--a comparison of general practice and skin cancer clinics.
Skin cancer is common in Australia and its increasing incidence has been matched by an increase in specifically focused skin cancer clinics staffed by general practitioners. This study compares the management of skin cancer in general practice with that of skin cancer clinic networks. ⋯ The benign to malignant excision rate was similar in general practice and the skin cancer clinic networks, but one network reported very different rates of biopsy and complex wound closure. This raises questions as to whether outcomes are improved by these measures. These results demonstrate the usefulness of three billing data outcome measures in comparing activity in different clinical settings. However, the billing based NNT may not be a useful measure.
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Recent drought conditions and diminishing drinking water storage levels in Australian capital cities have led to increasing attention being directed to water recycling and the use of alternative water sources for urban domestic use. Despite the 'in principle' acceptance by the Australian public for water recycling, support for proposed schemes is constrained by public perception of possible adverse health effects from exposure to micro-organisms and chemical contaminants. ⋯ Two complementary research approaches, quantitative microbial risk assessment and epidemiology, may be employed to assess health impacts of using recycled water for nondrinking or drinking purposes. The first of these approaches involves water quality monitoring and experimental studies. The second involves disease surveillance in which genera practitioners may play a part.
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People with specialised needs such as spinal cord injury (SCI) may not feature prominently in the caseload of the general practitioner. However, when people with chronic disabilities are aggregated, they constitute a reasonable percentage of consultations. It may be difficult to deliver high quality health care for such complex patients. ⋯ Practice structures can efficiently and effectively accommodate people with disabilities. Tools can serve as clinical prompts, help with planning, save time, and be financially rewarding. Importantly, they can anchor a 12 month cycle of preventive health care, allowing systematic monitoring and increasing intensity/coordination of professional input for those identified with greatest needs.