Consultation Skills – not the most exciting topic in medicine, but these are essential skills we use every day. I think most doctors learned the basics in Med School, then went into real-world practice, found some approaches that worked and some that didn’t and ‘evolved’ a style. My guess is that we opt for what [...]
Clinical case 039: Ectopic ectopic – a Gedankenexperiment
This case starts with a bad gas. This patient arrived ‘in extremis’. Suspected ectopic transferred in by plane with the following data: Urinary HCG positive Abdominal pain for a few days No urine output for the last 24 hours Hb in the remote clinic was 130 g/l yesterday A 14 second US in ED showed [...]
Shock: Back to basics, beyond the BP
Apologies to the smart ones reading this – but I have been trying to explain this concept to my students for a while – so I thought I would share. Shock: this is defined by hypoperfusion of the tissues resulting in insufficient substrates (oxygen, sugar etc) for aerobic cellular respiration. The good news is that [...]
2011 Guidelines : what’s new in Acute Coronary Syndromes
This is a summary of the new ACS guidelines – hot off the press. Heart, Lung and Circulation has produced the 2011 Addendum to the National Heart Foundation of Australia/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand Guidelines for the Management of Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) 2006. There are a few new concepts and changes which will effect the [...]
Lessons Learned from TC George
On Thursday 8th March 2007, Tropical Cyclone George crossed the coast just north of Port Hedland, it was a large, catgory 5 cyclone and it was unusual as it maintained its intensity for 100s of km inland where it struck Indee station and the Fortescue Metals Group Rail Village (FMG RV1). The destructive winds wreaked [...]
