Medcast news and blog

The team here at Medcast are pretty excited – we’ve just been notified of some prestigious awards for excellence.

The Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) is the most straightforward of the FRACGP exams, and yet many still struggle with it. In the 2016.1 exam cycle, the pass rate was around 64%, meaning that one-third of the candidates still have some trouble passing the AKT.

Do you feel comfortable about using computers to help people with their mental health? If not you are not alone and this might give you some insight into why you feel that way. Earlier this year I read a book called The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North, a pseudonym belonging to British author Catherine Webb. The story revolves around two interesting ideas.

Black Dog Institute’s Lifespan integrated suicide prevention research project includes an arm of mental health education in schools. The schools-based program is a local adaptation of Youth Aware Mental Health (YAM), a program developed at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The YAM program has, in longitudinal analyses, been shown to be effective in reducing depression, negative emotional symptoms, conduct problems and suicidal ideation, plans and attempts.

Ear problems are such a common issue during childhood but like many areas of medicine, a lot of the traditional treatment protocols used in the past were really based on anecdote and opinion rather than high level evidence. There has been a push over the last decade to modernise practice and try to identify more clearly which patients will benefit from grommets (and who doesn’t).

Podcasts are a great way to get a dose of education or relaxation without having to stop whatever else it is you are doing. I listen to This American Life on long drives from one workplace to another, to the BBC Comedy shows while exercising (I need something to take my mind off the pain of it all) and to Radio Lab while I knit or make jewellery or cook dinner.

“Cognitive bandwidth” is a term you may not have heard but a concept that makes sense from the minute you encounter it. In severe depression, and severe anxiety for that matter, concentration and focus are sufficiently impaired that any attempt to try to think differently is fairly futile.

As you may know, my current favourite TED Talk presenter is Swedish Professor Hans Rosling. In a talk I’ve mentioned before, the professor demonstrates in his inimitable way that none of us is very good at guessing the answers to questions about the world.

I was talking to a friend just recently, a well-educated, switched, on double degree carrying medical doctor, and discovered he did not know what a TED Talk was. “How does that happen?” I thought.