The Safe Practice Podcast

Health practitioner burnout - it's the triple-edged sword that injures practitioners, patients, and the health system.

In this episode, psychologist Dr Shaun Prentice joins me to discuss burnout:

• What causes it (the answer may surprise you!)
• How to prevent it.
• How to manage it.

Along the way we address the hard questions including "At what point does burnout signal that it is time to leave the pr...

It has long been accepted that in patients who have undergone axillary lymph node dissection/clearance, the ipsilateral arm must not be used again for any sort of medical instrumentation. This frequently results in overuse of the other arm (and sometimes the feet and other creative sites) for vascular access. The outcome was often impracticality, discomfort, distress, and occasionally overt harm to the patient. All due to the theor...

As clinicians, we all know that it's important to ask for help early when we reach the limits of our scope. But what does that look like practically, when you are a junior doctor?

To answer this question, I interview Resident Medical Officer Dr Jade Bevan for her insights. We discuss the principles and realities of acknowledging our limits and asking for help through the lens of real-life clinical scenarios (modified to prot...

As of 1 Nov 2023, Medicare rebates came into effect for reproductive genetic carrier screening. In this episode, I interview one of the clinical brains behind Mackenzie's Mission - Clinical Geneticist and Genetic Pathologist Professor Edwin Kirk.

We discuss the clinical nuances of RGCS, and also shed light on some uncommon pitfalls and ways to address them.

A must-listen episode for anyone who looks after pregnant w...

Our job as clinicians is to make a difference to patients, so it follows that our patients should be given every opportunity to voice what makes a difference to them.

We call care that aligns with this concept "patient-centred", but really it is just good sense and basic courtesy.

This is possibly my most important episode yet. Please comment and share if it resonates with you.

**All content and opinions expressed i...

Using a hypothetical case study, we discuss multiple important concepts regarding decision-making capacity:   1.     Can the Mental Health Act be used to enforce treatment for physical ailments? Link to the NSW Mental Health Act: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2007-008   2.     What is decision-making capacity? ·       When do we need to formally assess decision-making capacity? ·       What about pa...

In this episode I discuss the concept of giving your patient the "permission to cease" an examination or procedure, the reasons why you would do this, and the benefits for the therapeutic relationship. Along the way we touch on the freeze response (a lesser-known cousin of the flight or flight response) and some key concepts of health ethics. I round it off by giving you my personal experience having deployed this techn...

Ever wondered which of the 200 obscure risks and side effects of a treatment you should warn your patient about? This episode gives you a conceptual framework - in the form of the "Common SMS" mnemonic - with which to consider this aspect of the informed consent. Find me on Instagram @thesafepracticepodcast. All content and opinions of this podcast are my own and not those of any organisations with which I am affilia...