Pomegranate Health
Welcome to Pomegranate Health, a podcast about the culture of medicine. You’ll hear clinicians, academics and advocates discuss some big questions; How to difficult clinical and ethical decisions free from cognitive bias? How can communication with patients and peers be improved? And how to deliver healthcare most equitably and efficiently?
This is also the home of [IMJ On-Air], where authors from the College's Internal Medicine Journal present their work. [Journal Club] showcases RACP academics published in other journals. Meanwhile, the [Case Report] series is developed to guide Basic Physician Trainees on presentation of long-cases at their examinations.
Why a pomegranate? The fruit has featured on the coat of arms of the Royal College of Physicians of London since 1546. Listen here for the unlikely tale of how it made its way from ancient myth onto this podcast by way of Henry VIII.
Please continue the discussion in the comments section for each episode and send any feedback or ideas to podcast@racp.edu.au
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Search for ‘Pomegranate Health’ in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox or any podcasting app. For some apps you may need to import . It also provides a single page you can search for topics that might interest you in specific podcast episodes. You can also sign up for an email alert when a new episode is published about once a month.
CPD
At each episode page there is a MyCPD link for Fellows to log hours of participation in a Category 1 Educational activity. Consider "levelling up" this experience into a Category 2 Performance Review activity. For example, you could organise peers into a journal club to discuss the podcast. This could be done in person, or virtually. Reflect on aspects of the story that relate to your own practice and how it could be improved and visit MyCPD Handbook for further guidance or discussion templates.
Latest episodes
Ep56: Billing in Byzantium
Australia has one of the best value health systems in the world, but also some of the most complicated health regulation that ties together public and private payers. This creates some traps for well-intentioned providers and loopholes for the less well-intentioned.
Ep55: Starting out in Private Practice
When doctors are starting out in private practice, they typically do so within the safety net of an established practice, and typically renting a room in exchange for an agreed portion of the consultation. The next levels of complexity involve setting up a business for oneself, or partnering in a group practice. In this podcast we discuss the personal and financial challenges, and also how to build awareness and trust in the community.
Ep54: My Health Record in Practice
Australia’s personal health record has been around for seven years, but it’s been hard getting health providers to upload data the MyHealth Record routinely. The uptake differs wildly between primary, secondary and tertiary care, so in this podcast we visit each of these settings and hear what the different expectations are of this new tool, what are the benefits gained, and how well it fits into the workflow of a consultation.
Ep53: Marrabinya—a hand outstretched
Marrabinya is a Wiradjuri word meaning “hand outstretched.” It’s the name of a service in the Western New South Wales Primary Health Network which financially supports Indigenous Australians to attend specialist consultaions. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples currently receive specialist medical care 40% less often than non-indigenous Australians. The Marrabinya staff explain how socioeconomic factors and institutional biases even in these settings can accumulate to prevent Aboriginal patients from receiving the care they need.
Ep52: Opioids Part 2- Regulation and Marketing
This episode looks at influencers of opioid prescribing. First we ask which are the opioids most commonly leading to dependence and why are they prescribed. Then we discuss the mixed messages that prescribers are getting from guidelines and pharmaceutical regulation, not to mention promotional campaigns by pharmaceutical companies. In Tasmania these influences have be countered by education, regulation and real-time prescription monitoring.
Ep51: Getting off the Opioids- Part 1
Australia and New Zealand have seen a fourfold increase in opioid use over the last thirty years. Most of this prescribing has been for chronic non-cancer pain, but there is little evidence to support this indication. In this podcast we’ll discuss some of the latest studies that provide evidence against the efficacy of opioid use for chronic non-cancer pain. We explain how to identify patients that have developed dependence on or addiction to opioids and how to wean them off this medication. And we describe an alternative approach to therapy that involves breaking maladaptive pain associations in the nervous system.
Ep50: Rural Medicine in NZ- Congress 2019
In this episode we hear three perspectives on rural medicine in New Zealand-Aotearoa, recorded at the RACP Congress in Auckland. New Zealand doesn’t have the same extremes of remoteness of Australia, but it does have a rugged landscape that results in small and scattered communities. The populations which are disproportionately under-serviced and in worse health, are not necessarily the most remote, and the demarcations fall much more starkly along lines of socioeconomic status.
Ep49: Training in the Bush Part 2—Remote WA
Remote settings in Australia only have 11 percent as many specialists per capita as major cities and this means that pathology is often more advanced by the time it’s diagnosed The medicine can be confronting but the training experience is great and rewarding. In this episode we visit Broome, two and a half thousand kilometres from tertiary facilities in WA, and find out what it’s like to train as a generalist up there.
Ep48: Training in the Bush Part 1—Country NSW
A third of Australia’s population is classified as regional or remote, but as it’s such a big place it’s hard to provide comprehensive heath care all over. In this episode we visit the country town of Dubbo which services a catchment of 130,000 people across Western NSW. While need in this area is high, Dubbo presents an example of strong clinical leadership and training across many specialties.
Ep47: Complex Adolescent Transitions—Congress 2019
Adolescence is a turbulent time as teens are faced not just with changes to their bodies, but to their moods and thought patterns as well. Young people with complex needs such as diabetes, transplant management or intellectual disability are the least likely to received dedicated transition support. The three speakers in this podcast explain that improving this transition process doesn’t require going way above and beyond regular practice, it just needs a little more coordination. And all the medical care in the world needs to fit in with the lifestyle that every young adult aspires to.