Services doing the best they can: service experiences of young adults with type 1 diabetes mellitus in rural Australia.

Aims And Objectives: To describe the healthcare experiences of young adults with type 1 diabetes who access diabetes services in rural areas of New South Wales, Australia.

Background: The incidence of type 1 diabetes in childhood and adolescence is increasing worldwide; internationally, difficulties are encountered in supporting young people during their transition from children to adulthood. Consumers' experiences and views will be essential to inform service redesign.

Waiting room ambience and provision of opioid substitution therapy in general practice.

Objective: To assess whether patients receiving opioid substitution therapy (OST) in general practice cause other patients sufficient distress to change practices--a perceived barrier that prevents general practitioners from prescribing OST.

Design, Setting And Participants: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey of consecutive adult patients in the waiting rooms of a network of research general practices in New South Wales during August-December 2009.

Main Outcome Measures: Prevalence of disturbing waiting room experiences where drug intoxication was considered a factor, discomfort about sharing the waiting room with patients being treated for drug addiction, and likelihood of changing practices if the practice provided specialised care for patients with opiate addiction.

Lost in transition? Access to and uptake of adult health services and outcomes for young people with type 1 diabetes in regional New South Wales.

Objective: To document diabetes health services use and indices of glycaemic management of young people with type 1 diabetes from the time of their first contact with adult services, for those living in regional areas compared with those using city and state capital services, and compared with clinical guideline targets.

Design, Setting And Subjects: Case note audit of 239 young adults aged 18-28 years with type 1 diabetes accessing five adult diabetes services before 30 June 2008 in three geographical regions of New South Wales: the capital (86), a city (79) and a regional area (74).

Main Outcome Measures: Planned (routine monitoring) and unplanned (hospital admissions and emergency department attendance for hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia) service contacts; recorded measures of glycated haemoglobin (HbA(1c)), body mass index (BMI), and blood pressure (BP).

Postgraduate medical placements in rural areas: their impact on the rural medical workforce.

Introduction: In 1988, the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Health developed the NSW Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetship Program (Cadetship Program) to help overcome a junior doctor workforce shortage in rural hospitals. A second aim was to increase recruitment to the rural medical workforce on the basis that positive exposure to rural medicine increases the likelihood of choosing to practice in a rural location. The Cadetship Program offers bonded scholarships which provide financial support for residents of NSW studying medicine during the final 2 years of their medical degree.