27/01/2020 - Happy Lunar New Year!
Welcome to a fresh-faced site! We’ve done a little makeover to neaten things up, dust off the shelves and adjust the tablecloths so we can go into the Lunar New Year looking sharp! I’ve taken on a little extra training over the past few weeks so that I can better manage and promote your content and the project as a whole, and as a result we’ve changed up a few things in the project. I’m so excited to share our activity and the upcoming works with you!
In recent news…
The bushfires in Australia have continued to wreak havoc on rural and remote communities in particular. Hailing from Kangaroo Island, Dr. Tim Leeuwenburg had a chat with us about the way that rural and remote GPs have been trying to plug the gaps in emergency response systems.
The ACT has entered a state of emergency for the first time in 17 years, subsequent to the serious weather events that have been consequences of the bushfires. Such weather extremes are being felt wherever the bushfires touch, and have brought environmental issues such as heat stress-related deaths to the forefront of Australian medical research.
The Coronavirus has been exposing complex tensions in our medical and political systems. As we shift from an environmental crisis to a potential disease crisis, GPs are facing a troubled position as points-of-contact for a public health issue, without being kept updated and aware across all strategies being implemented at the government level.
Despite protests from anti-sexual violence advocates (including previous Australian of the Year and anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty) Ms. Bettina Arndt was offered an Australia Day Award. Days later, it was uncovered that she did not, in fact, possess the qualifications that have bolstered her credibility over her career. She has been variously named a psychologist, clinical psychologist, and Dr. Arndt in the past, generating frustration in the medical and academic communities who rely on the credibility of their positions to deliver genuine healthcare and life-saving advice.
The Medical Republic has secured the internal guidelines used by the Department of Human Services to determine when it is appropriate to release PBS and MBS data to state and federal policing agencies. No warrant or court order is needed for the department to release this information to the police, and the guidelines themselves, once revealed to the public, have been criticised for their laxity by lawyers and health privacy advocates. Read more here.
Coming up…
February is going to be a busy month for the Library! We have new content goals, new goals for our shelves, and new goals for the longevity of the Library. Some of the pieces we’re most excited to share with you are an interview with Dr. Gwendoline (Wendy) Burton about her project GPs Can, and a piece by Dr. Teah Mogae about her project Losika Writes.
You may also notice that we have new social links down the bottom of our page - we have just started a Youtube channel, and created a public-facing Facebook Page to complement the private-facing group! These pages will be used to promote your content where the private Facebook Group will continue to be the primary point of contact for community engagement.
If you have suggestions for the project, content you’d like to pitch, or colleagues you think deserve to have their projects promoted, get in touch!
Happy reading!