This episode features two physicians who took advocacy to the next level and ran for Federal Parliament. They explain the process of getting health policy heard and how to push it through the Canberra machine and onto the political agenda.

Australia will warm by more than three degrees by the end of the century with a direct impact on heat-related morbidity. It will also experience more frequent natural disasters and the RACP is calling for national coordination to help the health care system adapt.

Immunotherapy has revolutionised care for patients with advanced melanoma but it’s not possible to identify responders in advance. We explore conversations with patients around expectations for prognosis and toxicity.

The three word mission statement of the RACP is Educate - Advocate – Innovate. In this podcast we hear from physicians who have taken up a cause, and how the College can help amplify the message.

When can a child be considered to have autonomy to make healthcare decisions for themselves? How should responsibility for difficult decisions be shared between the patients, the parents and clinicians? And is it possible to minimise the moral injury when the wishes of the patient need to be over-ruled?

In Australia, litigation is the only way for victims to get financial compensation for the medical injury. New Zealand, by contrast, operates a no-fault scheme where the costs of hardship and ongoing care are born by the government for many harms incurred in healthcare.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to incident disclosure is culture of medicine itself. This podcast explores the guilt that can come about from having caused harm, and the cognitive dissonance this creates in one’s professional identity as a healer.

Medical injury occurs at a rate of about 12 per cent of admissions but is often not disclosed to patients or their families. This podcast explores why practitioners may be fearful of admitting to errors and how victims want the health system to make amends.

There are many layers of public health interventions that can reduce the rate of transmission of the novel coronavirus but you need you need the community on board to make a significant impact. In this podcast we discuss the challenges and strategies around messaging to the community during a time of such high anxiety.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how hard it is to take decisions affecting the lives of millions when there is so little evidence to go on. Models of viral spread and interventions to mitigate these have become everyday discussion points, but few people understand how hard these are to put together.