An empathic connection and good communication between physician and patient can promote better outcomes. In this episode of Pomegranate Health, you’ll hear where major breakdowns in communication occur, and some remedies to improve this. We also discuss why some media report a ‘crisis of compassion’ in healthcare, and how empathic reflection can help both doctors and their patients.

As medicine becomes more sophisticated, discussions about clinical ethics become more common. It’s now possible to support life in dire clinical circumstances, but physicians are not always sure if this is the right thing to do. This episode centres around ethical decision-making in two case studies. The first describes a three-year-old boy with a severe neurodegenerative disorder, whose parents are desperate to try an expensive experimental drug. The second is about a man ravaged by bowel cancer who has spent months on life-sustaining care.

This is the second of two episodes about ACS, and deals with secondary prevention and adherence to therapy. One-fifth of people given a diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) have another ischaemic event with six months of discharge. For secondary prevention, guidelines recommend pharmacotherapy, cardiac rehabilitation and lifestyle management. However, many patients are discharged from hospital without best-practice care, setting a trend for inadequate therapy long-term. Cardiac rehabilitation also needs to be modernised and personalised to keep patients engaged.

Chest pain and other symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) make up the majority of presentations to hospital, but no more than 17 per cent of patients end up having the diagnosis confirmed. Diagnosing acute coronary is complex, and should be guided by the 2016 guidelines of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. This podcast outlines how ECG is used to diagnose ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, and which life-threatening differential diagnoses to look for. The role of high sensitivity troponin assays is also discussed, in the differentiation of non-STEMI and unstable angina, and also in risk stratification of patients for safe discharge.

In Episode 32 of Pomegranate Health, we discussed cognitive error in diagnostic reasoning. On this episode, we take a look at systems pressures that increase the likelihood of medical error, crystallised by the recent prosecution of U.K. National Health Service (NHS) paediatrician Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba. Almost half of diagnostic errors are due to a combination of systems errors and individual cognitive error. Obvious systems effects come into play in understaffed acute care units; if a clinician is forced to see too many patients without enough time to make careful examinations or reasoned decisions, errors become more likely. The stepping stones of ordering, receiving and reviewing diagnostic tests and scans also allow much opportunity for error and delay. Guests on this episode discuss mechanisms to improve efficiency.

Cannabis is a plant rich with potential therapeutic compounds and centuries of cultural resonance. However, only a few of the claimed medical effects of the plant have been proven by rigorous clinical trials in people. These include spasticity and pain in multiple sclerosis, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and some cases of epilepsy. But for many other conditions, systematic reviews have concluded that meaningful clinical recommendations cannot be made. In this episode, we explain how important it is to separate the effect of various cannabinoids in a systematic way, and why well-regulated research and prescribing will be safer for patients.

This is the first of two episodes about errors in diagnostic reasoning. Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis occurs in 10-15 per cent of acute presentations, although fortunately only a tenth of these lead to serious consequences. But of concern is the fact that this figure hasn’t changed in three decades, despite progress in clinical knowledge. Cognitive errors result from jumping to conclusions on the basis of intuition and incomplete information. There are a hundred different types of such bias. On this episode, the most common types will be discussed, as well as strategies to force a more considered process of diagnostic reasoning.

‘Ngā Kaitiaki Hauora’ translates as ‘guardians of health’. This podcast emerged from a meeting near Auckland organised by the RACP’s Māori Health Committee in November 2017. Members of various medical colleges and institutions came together to share perspectives on the delivery of health care to New Zealand’s population of Māori and Pacific Islander people. This conversation comes in the context of the Wai 262 claim, which is forcing a re-examination of the Crown’s obligations to the Māori population under the Waitangi Treaty of 1840.

Figures about burnout, depression and suicide are often reported on in the health workforce. These rates are typically twofold higher than they are in the general population, according to studies from New Zealand, Australia and around the world. Causes often given for psychiatric distress in the medical profession are the gruelling hours, the pressure of perfection, the unforgiving culture and the stigma associated with mental health issues. This episode examines how the system affects the individuals within it, and what can be changed for the better.

Drug-drug interactions might be responsible for a million hospitalisations in Australia every year. They have become more frequent over the decades, as more medications reach the market. More than half of people over the age of 75 are on five or more prescriptions—a state referred to as polypharmacy. This episode examines some of the systems that have led to current rates of polypharmacy, and some strategies for deprescribing. We also discuss a review from the Internal Medicine Journal on the common drug interactions physicians should be most concerned about.