Explore the Pomegranate Health Podcast library
Browse all episodes below, starting with the most recent releases.
Latest episodes
REWIND<< Genomics for the generalist
This <<REWIND>> of the 2017 episode “Genomics for the Generalist” is a good primer on fundamental concepts and everyday challenges for the physician advising a patient. The expert guests include a genetic pathologist, a clinical geneticist, a genetic counsellor and a medical oncologist.
Ep146: Dealing with the next pandemic 2- lockdowns and human rights
While Australia’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most effective in the world it caused unintended social harms and lingering resentment in some parts of the community. In the second of two episodes we ask whether there even is a scientific answer to the cost-benefit calculus around lockdowns and school closures.
Ep145: Dealing with the next pandemic 1- border closures and vaccine mandates
Australia’s public health policies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic are estimated to have spared up to 50,000 lives up to December 2022, and vaccines probably saved three times as many again. Over two episodes we examine the efficacy and the social costs of various interventions, starting with border closures and vaccines.
Ep105: When parents and paediatrics clash
Disputes over the care of paediatric patients have become more frequent and more intense. Mediation skills can help avoid these and minimise moral injury to parents and healthcare staff.
Ep77: Deciding with Children
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?
Ep62: Essential Ethics in Adolescent Health
Two more case studies from the Essential Ethics podcast tackling the question of when refusal of treatment should or shouldn’t be accepted by a medical team, and how much autonomy does an adolescent have. Featuring clinicians from the oncology department at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.
Ep59: Essential Ethics in Paediatrics
When can a child be said to have cognitive capacity and bodily autonomy? For those who don’t, where does the guardianship of the parent to give way to that of the medical professionals? These questions and more are discussed in two case studies from the Essential Ethics podcast, produced within the Children's Bioethics Centre in Melbourne.
Ep37: Ethical Dilemmas—Congress 2018
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.
Ep34: Diagnostic Error Part 2—Systems
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.