Supervising junior doctors and "on-call" responsibilities: Brus v Australian Capital Territory; Greater Southern Area Health Service v Angus.

The recent decisions of Brus v Australian Capital Territory [2007] ACTSC 83 and Greater Southern Area Health Service v Angus [2007] NSWSC 1211 highlight different aspects of the difficulties associated with supervision of junior doctors in the present public-funded Australian public hospital system. Their facts reveal how difficult it is for senior staff to achieve the fine balance required to assist trainees by according adequate experience and responsibility on the one hand, and to ensure patient safety, on the other. In addition, these cases highlight problems with the supervision process that are likely to be exacerbated in a privatised health care setting where senior staff may have less inclination to supervise struggling juniors unless adequately remunerated for such teaching, an issue of considerable controversy given the focus on profit of those institutions.

Researching safety and cost-effectiveness in the life cycle of nanomedicine.

Nanotechnology is rapidly emerging as a transformational influence on many industry sectors. This is particularly true of medicines and medical devices. This article argues that, as policy interest in devising an appropriate regulatory framework for nanotherapeutics escalates, it will be important for public health to ensure that a broad life-cycle approach to both safety and cost-effectiveness is adopted.