GPs need ‘prompt and complete’ discharge summaries: coroner
A coroner has again flagged the importance of discharge summaries being “promptly communicated” to GPs following the death of a patient from prescription drug toxicity.…
Tag: Psychiatry
Medical board’s IMG fast track brings in 42 GPs in first three months
The Medical Board of Australia has approved 42 GPs, eight anaesthetists and three psychiatrists under its new IMG fast track that cuts out medical college…
Antidepressant withdrawal or depression relapse? Here’s what I want GPs to know
There is increasing evidence that antidepressant withdrawal symptoms (or ‘discontinuation’ symptoms) are common and can be severe and long-lasting. Yet in the past, these symptoms…
‘The NSW Government needs to realise people will die’: Psychiatry registrar quits for Victoria
NSW is home for psychiatry registrar Dr Nithya Reddy. It is where she grew up, undertook all of her medical training so far and became…
Doctors and functional disorders — how I escaped heartsink
There is a term in medicine that has always made me feel uncomfortable. It gets used less now, but you still hear it: heartsink —…
Psychiatrists want the Tony Abbott treatment — rebates that are 100% of the Medicare schedule fee
Psychiatrists want to join GPs with Medicare items that pay 100% of the schedule fee rather than 85% for outpatients or 75% for inpatients. The Royal Australian…
NSW Mental Health Minister did not question $750 chauffeured ride to winery ‘because I was excited by my birthday lunch’
The NSW Minister for Mental Health has defied calls to quit over a $750 taxpayer-funded trip to a winery for her birthday lunch. Rose Jackson,…
Clinical independence under threat from ‘vertically integrated’ cannabis companies, doctors tell Mark Butler
Doctor and pharmacy groups have suggested banning medicinal cannabis companies from simultaneously owning clinics and dispensaries, saying doctors’ independence is at stake. AMA Queensland and…
The NSW psychiatry registrars left behind: ‘We’ll be propping up a broken system. We won’t be learning’
After six years of psychiatry training, registrar Dr Lauren Amor was ready to qualify and take her place as a NSW junior psychiatrist. She would…
Do NSW psychiatrists deserve a 25% pay rise? Here’s my take as an emergency doctor
Watching from afar, the new US regime’s changes to the management of healthcare, superimposed on an already dysfunctional system, elicit a sense of foreboding. The…
