Category: Archive

A penny for your lifestyle change?

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By Emily Feng-Gu

Everyone knows that if you’re in an OSCE station the first-line management for a chronic disease is lifestyle modification.

Lifestyle choices contribute to many of the chronic diseases that are topping the list of Australia’s causes of mortality, including cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and some types of cancer.1

Behavioural change is difficult, and a lot of how we approach the challenge of motivating patients is rooted in patient education. We lay out the benefits and risks, we set SMART goals, and we hope that information is enough to spur patients into action. That is, we assume people are perfectly rational – but maybe we shouldn’t.

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Death: A Medical Student’s Perspective

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By Yung Chong Soon

This Wednesday morning started like any other day on the general medical unit as a final year medical student. I looked through the ward list, and noticed that Mary, a patient who I have been closely monitoring over the past three days, was no longer on the list. I was hit briefly by a moment of disbelief. Fearing the worst, I proceeded to ask my registrar, who was on his usual routine of checking bloods prior to the ward round. He turned around from his office chair and calmly mentioned that Mary had passed away in the early hours of this morning.

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In Your Head: Being a bystander to mental illness

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Anonymous

Mental illness is a demon that exists only in the mind. The intricacies of this internal struggle can only be intimately known by the person experiencing it. To add to the difficulty of articulating one’s thoughts and feelings, the social stigma associated with it only exacerbates the situation, leaving many feeling isolated, silenced and trapped in their own heads. Mental illness is real, a living reality that many have to struggle with and accept. In Australia, just slightly less than half of us will experience a mental health condition over our lifetimes.

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