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 can one make difficult clinical and ethical decisions free from bias? How can communication with patients and peers be improved? How can healthcare delivery be made more equitable and efficient?
This is also the home of IMJ On-Air, where authors of the College's Internal Medicine Journal present their work. Expert advice on the current best standards for your practice.
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Search for ‘Pomegranate Health’ in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox or any podcasting app. You mean need to import this RSS feed into other apps, and it's an easy page to search for thematic terms and podcasts that might interest you. You can also sign up for an email alert when a new episode is published about once a month.
At each page there is a MyCPD link for Fellows to log credits for participating in educational activity. Please continue the discussion in the comments section below each episode or at the RACP Online Community forum.
Latest episodes
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.
Ep46: The First 1000 Days—Congress 2019
This episode was recorded at the 2019 RACP Congress in Auckland. The three speakers dealt with the profound influence that the early years of life have on life-long health, wellbeing, behaviour and socioeconomic outcomes. Together, these speakers demonstrated that the consequences of childhood disadvantage are borne not just by individuals and families but by all of society, and conversely that a community approach must be adopted to ameliorate this. The lectures were framed by the launch of an RACP position statement on early childhood titled “The Importance of the Early Years.”
Ep45: Medical Fitness to Drive
Clinicians are drawn into the question of driving fitness in two main ways. The more clearcut is when a patient presents with a medical assessment form. The other is when they detect a new or worsening condition in a patient who is already licenced. Clinicians are expected to warn their patients off driving, and to potentially report them to the DLA if this advice isn’t being heeded. In this podcast we hear about some of the diagnoses that should raise red flags, and how to discuss cessation from driving with patients.
Ep44: Cervical Screening–Less Is More
Pap testing has been one of the most successful public health interventions in history. But in Australia, that classic cytology test now plays second fiddle to HPV testing and New Zealand intends to follow suit by 2021. The most noticeable shift is that the interval between screens will now be five years rather than two. And women will enter the program at age 25 instead of 18. This episode will answer some questions that women and health professionals might have about the renewed cervical screening program.
Ep43: What’s in a Name? - Disruption Part 2
This is the second of two podcasts about “digital disruption” in healthcare. We discuss autonomy in decision-making, and how access to health data is important to individuals. We’ll also hear about the cultural baggage attached to words like patient and consumer.
Ep42: The Value Proposition - Disruption Part 1
“Digital disruption” is what happened to the taxi industry at the hands of Google Maps and Uber or to the music industry with the onslaught mp3 files and digital sharing platforms. Democratizing technology is changing delivery of healthcare too and the expectations of consumers. What is the role of physicians in this brave new world?
Ep41: Targeting Diabetes
Glucose-lowering medications have been the mainstay of managing type 2 diabetes for 20 years. But a recent polemic between diabetes organisations has prompted an examination of specific targets for blood sugar in different patients. This episode explores the debate, and also summarises the use of new drug classes that don’t just lower blood glucose but appear to provide cardiovascular benefits directly in sicker patients.