Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Jul 2019
Not just a policy; this is for real. An affirmative action policy to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to seek employment in the health workforce.
Delivery of culturally safe healthcare is critical to ensuring access to high-quality care for indigenous people. A key component of this is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be participants in the health workforce. The proportion of indigenous people in the health workforce should at least equate to the proportion in the population served. We describe the development and implementation of a successful affirmative action employment policy at Monash Health, one of Australia's largest Academic Health Centres, and provide perspective on its adoption.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2019
Integrating diabetic retinopathy screening within diabetes education services in Australia's diabetes and indigenous primary care clinics.
As diabetes occurs in all ethnicities and regions it is essential that retinopathy screening be widely available. Screening rates are lower in Indigenous than in non-Indigenous Australians. ⋯ Diabetes educators are an integral part of diabetes management. Integrating ocular screening and diabetes education in primary care settings has potential to improve synergistically retinopathy screening coverage, patient self-management, risk factor control, care satisfaction, health economics and sustainability of under-resourced services.
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Internal medicine journal · May 2019
ReviewPresenting signs and patient co-variables in Gaucher disease: outcome of the Gaucher Earlier Diagnosis Consensus (GED-C) Delphi initiative.
Gaucher disease (GD) presents with a range of signs and symptoms. Physicians can fail to recognise the early stages of GD owing to a lack of disease awareness, which can lead to significant diagnostic delays and sometimes irreversible but avoidable morbidities. ⋯ The signs and co-variables identified in the GED-C initiative as potentially indicative of early GD will help to guide non-specialists and raise their index of suspicion in identifying patients potentially suitable for diagnostic testing for GD.
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Internal medicine journal · May 2019
Correlation between pre-treatment serum carcinoembryonic antigen levels and genotypes in a large population of Chinese people with advanced lung adenocarcinoma.
A positive correlation between serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations has been reported in lung adenocarcinoma patients. ⋯ Our study demonstrated that a significant association exists between the serum CEA levels and genotypes in patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma.
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Internal medicine journal · May 2019
Access, knowledge and experience with fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in infection management: a survey of Australia and New Zealand infectious diseases physicians and microbiologists.
Despite fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) being funded only for staging and restaging of some malignancies in Australia, there is evidence of benefit of FDG-PET/CT for infection indications such as pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO), prolonged neutropenic fever (NF) and prosthetic device infection. ⋯ Access to FDG-PET/CT in Australia and New Zealand is modest and is limited by lack of reimbursement for infection indications. There is discrepancy between recognised ID indications for FDG-PET/CT and funded indications.