A values-based health system.

We do not have a health system with collaboratively oriented values. Reforms that former prime minister Kevin Rudd initiated, which are now Prime Minister Julia Gillard's to prosecute, do not support such a health system. Reformers have consistently ignored present and potential values.

Reforming New South Wales public hospitals: an assessment of the Garling inquiry.

The final report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Public Hospitals was published on 27 November 2008. The report acknowledges the challenges facing the New South Wales health system, including increasing numbers of patients, rising treatment costs, workforce pressures, and the breakdown of working relations between clinicians and management. Many of Commissioner Garling's 139 recommendations formalise aspects of clinical care that should and could be happening now if the system were better managed, including better supervision and training of junior staff.

The challenge of locum working arrangements in New South Wales public hospitals.

Use of locum medical officers is increasing in the NSW hospital system. Locums are expensive, and have highly variable expertise and experience. Locum employment arrangements are ambiguous.

Re-inventing medical work and training: a view from generation X.

Medical career preferences are changing, with doctors working fewer hours and seeking "work-life balance". There is an urgent need for creative workplace redesign if Australia is to have a sustainable health care system. Postgraduate medical education must adapt to changing medical roles.