Pomegranate Health
Welcome to Pomegranate Health — a podcast about the culture of medicine.
Get insights from clinicians, researchers, and advocates as they tackle important questions — like how to make difficult clinical and ethical decisions without being influenced by bias, how to communicate better with patients and colleagues, and how to provide healthcare that’s both efficient and fair.
If you're a CPD participant, time spent listening counts towards your CPD hours. And if you're a Basic Physician Trainee, the Case Report series can help you prepare for your long case clinical exams.
This is also where you'll find IMJ On-Air, featuring authors from the Internal Medicine Journal sharing their latest research. Plus, the Journal Club episodes give RACP researchers a chance to talk through their work published in other academic journals.
We’d love to hear your thoughts — feel free to leave a comment on each episode or send feedback and ideas to podcast@racp.edu.au.
Latest episodes
Ep27: Severe Asthma
For years the management model for asthma has been empirical. The more serious the disease, the more the dose of controller therapy is increased. But this doesn’t work for everyone and a more rational approach involves identifying one of three distinct pathological pathways. This episode describes emerging diagnostic tools therapies such as monoclonal antibodies that are targeted to specific disease phenotypes.
Ep26: Dealing with Uncertainty – Part 2
Uncertainty is a frightening but unavoidable fact in every speciality. In the second of a two-part series, we look at the stigma and disorientation experienced by patients with medically unexplained syndromes, and some behavioural interventions for functional disorders. Since treatment outcomes are never guaranteed, we also discuss how a patient’s expectations must be managed from the beginning of a consultation, and the importance of long-term coping strategies.
Ep25: Dealing with Uncertainty – Part 1
Uncertainty is a frightening but unavoidable fact in every speciality. In the first of a two-part series, we examine the culture within the profession and general public that expects nothing less that perfection in medicine. We also ask whether hospital training might shelter younger doctors from the experience of complex, chronic conditions, and how much the simplicity of protocol can be relied upon.
Ep24: Social Medicine – Themes from Congress 2017
At May’s RACP Congress, there was great interest in sessions examining the moral obligations physicians have to society. On this episode of Pomegranate, three speakers from these panels reflect on some of the themes raised at the event.
Ep23: Managing Autism in the ED
People with autism spectrum disorder can become very agitated when experiencing pain, as they often have trouble making sense of their own emotional and physical states. Many also have difficulty communicating, and are thus difficult to assess in the emergency department. This episode covers techniques to calm distressed patients with autism and make medical assessments.
Ep22: Transitions to Retirement
It’s common to avoid thinking about retirement, and the idea can sometimes come as a shock—professionally, personally, or financially. This month, we speak with physicians both in and out of retirement, as well as two psychiatrists whose research focuses on medical professionals’ identity.
Ep21: Genomics for the Generalist – Part 2
This is a two-part series looking at how modern genomics is changing clinical practice. In our second episode, we consider genetic risk, the ethics of consenting patients, and gene-targeted treatments in cancer research.
Ep20: Genomics for the Generalist – Part 1
This is a two-part series looking at how modern genomics is changing clinical practice. In our first episode, we look at the differences in gene-testing technologies and their practical utility in clinical practice.
[Guest Lecture] Integrating Health and Social Care
Sir Harry Burns and Dr Ruth Hussey OBE are public health physicians involved in “whole-of-system change” in Britain’s health and social care. They were invited to Australia in 2016 to advise NSW Health on such delivery models; this episode of Pomegranate features a special lecture presented at the RACP during their trip.