Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Aug 2021
Medical Oncology Care Plan: a tool for improving the provision of clinical information to patients.
Improving clinical communication between patient and clinician through the provision of written information empowers patients to make informed decisions, underpinning patient-centred care and leading to greater health outcomes. The Townsville Cancer Centre has formulated a holistic care plan template for each patient as a tool to enhance this communication. ⋯ While initially time consuming, completion of care plans had many benefits for clinicians; they prompted them to collect holistic information, engage in discussions to capture patient goals and document details about prognosis, treatment options and management of side-effects. Medical oncology care plans provide a sustainable method to provide clinicians a practical template to gather vital information and encourage patients to participate in the decision-making process for healthcare.
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Internal medicine journal · Aug 2021
Pulmonary embolus in patients with COVID-19: an Australian perspective.
Pulmonary embolus (PE) is a known complication of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The diagnosis of PE in our hospitalised patients with COVID-19 correlated with more severe disease and occurred despite the use of routine thromboprophylaxis. Higher D-dimers were seen on admission in patients who developed PE and rose at PE diagnosis, suggesting a role for D-dimer in risk stratification.
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Internal medicine journal · Aug 2021
Reintroduced malaria in Queensland, Australia during the Second World War.
A malaria epidemic arose in 1942 in Cairns, which was the evacuation point from the Japanese offensive in New Guinea. Health authorities made great efforts to suppress parasites in transiting soldiers and to position them south of 19°S latitude away from most vectors. Queensland experienced some scattered locally transmitted epidemics in 1943-1944 but by 1945 malaria transmission had largely been eliminated.