Making it legal: abortion providers' knowledge and use of abortion law in New South Wales and Queensland.

Objectives: To explore the knowledge of state abortion law of doctors providing abortion in New South Wales and Queensland, their attitudes towards this law, and their application of both knowledge and attitudes to their day-to-day practice of abortion.

Design And Participants: Qualitative study using interviews of twenty-two medical practitioners agreeing to participate and identified as providing surgical and/or medical abortions in NSW or Queensland. Specific questions about practice as well as responses to ten common clinical scenarios formed the basis of each interview.

More is not necessarily better. A biomechanical study on distal screw numbers in volar locking distal radius plates.

Introduction: Currently available volar locking plates for the treatment of distal radius fractures incorporate at least two distal screw rows for fixation of the metaphyseal fragment and have a variable-angle locking mechanism which allows placement of the screws in various directions There is, however no evidence that these plates translate into better outcomes or have superior biomechanical properties to first generation plates, which had a single distal screw row and fixed-angle locking. The aim of our biomechanical study was to compare fixed-angle single-row plates with variable-angle multi-row plates to clarify the optimal number of locking screws.

Materials And Methods: Five different plate-screw combinations of three different manufacturers were tested, each group consisting of five synthetic fourth generation distal radius bones.

Knowledge of abortion law and provision of abortion services amongst tertiary students in Far North Queensland.

Abortion is an important health issue for Australian women, yet there are large variations across Australia in abortion service provision and in state laws regulating abortion practice. We conducted a survey of tertiary students in Far North Queensland to ascertain their knowledge of local abortion services and of abortion law in Queensland. Important gaps were demonstrated in their knowledge of the law and of the availability of abortion services.

Views and practices of induced abortion among Australian Fellows and specialist trainees of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Objective: To determine the opinions and current practice of obstetricians and gynaecologists and trainees in the specialty with regard to induced abortion.

Design, Setting And Participants: A voluntary, anonymous survey of Australian Fellows and specialist trainees of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was conducted between 23 June and 31 July 2009 using an email invitation to proceed to an online questionnaire.

Main Outcome Measures: Attitudes to abortion; self-reported usual practice of induced abortion.

Association between serum lipoproteins and abdominal aortic aneurysm.

The importance of dyslipidemia in the etiology of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is poorly defined, in part because previous association analyses have often not considered the use of current lipid-modifying medications. Medications targeted at altering the concentrations of circulating lipids have an established role in occlusive atherosclerosis but are of unknown value in the primary prevention of AAA. We examined the association between fasting serum levels of triglycerides low- and high-density lipoprotein and the presence of an AAA in a cohort of 3,327 men aged 65 to 83 years.

Esophageal cancer in Indigenous Australians in Far North Queensland.

Background And Aims: There is very little information known about esophageal cancer in Indigenous persons. In this retrospective study, we investigated the epidemiological and clinical features of Indigenous Australians with esophageal cancer.

Methods: A retrospective study was carried out on Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians diagnosed with esophageal cancer at Cairns Base Hospital during the period 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2006.

The King versus Aleck Bourne.

The case that established the lawfulness of terminating pregnancy to preserve women's health.

Lack of coordination between health policy and medical education: a contributing factor to the resignation of specialist trainees in Fiji?

Aim: Specialist training was established in Fiji in 1998. This study explored whether health policy, and in particular mismatches between existing policy and the new realities of local specialist training, contributed to decisions by many trainees to ultimately leave the public sectors, often to migrate.

Method: Data was collected on the whereabouts of all specialist trainees.

Could the Baby Bonus be a bonus for babies?

Closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians needs to start in the womb. Rates of perinatal mortality, preterm birth and low birthweight are two to three times greater among the babies of Indigenous women than among those of non-Indigenous women; low birthweight predisposes infants to greater risks of chronic illness in later life. Indigenous women in Australia tend to present for antenatal care later in pregnancy than do non-Indigenous women.

Specialist training in Fiji: why do graduates migrate, and why do they remain? A qualitative study.

Background: Specialist training was established in the late 1990s at the Fiji School of Medicine. Losses of graduates to overseas migration and to the local private sector prompted us to explore the reasons for these losses from the Fiji public workforce.

Methods: Data were collected on the whereabouts and highest educational attainments of the 66 Fiji doctors who had undertaken specialist training to at least the diploma level between 1997 and 2004.

Prospective study of the Perigee system for the management of cystocoeles--medium-term follow up.

Objectives: The Perigee transobturator cystocoele repair system (AMS) was designed and first used in Townsville, Australia. This prospective study evaluates the efficacy and safety of this device for the management of cystocoeles.

Methods: Patients who underwent surgery with the Perigee system between March 2004 and December 2005 were reviewed.

Pregnancy characteristics of women giving birth to children with fetal alcohol syndrome in Far North Queensland.

Background: Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) has been identified as a major cause of impairment to normal physical and intellectual development among Indigenous children in Far North Queensland; however, little is known of the pregnancy characteristics of mothers of those children diagnosed with FAS or of interventions that might assist in lowering the prevalence of the syndrome.

Aim: To review the pregnancy records of women whose infants were subsequently diagnosed with FAS by the Paediatric Outreach Service (POS) of the Cairns Base Hospital, and to determine how such women might be identified prospectively in pregnancy and offered intervention to reduce alcohol consumption.

Methods: A retrospective case-control study involving all children diagnosed with FAS by the POS between 1994 and 2006; maternal pregnancy records were accessed and details obtained.

Using faecal elastase-1 to screen for chronic pancreatitis in patients admitted with acute pancreatitis.

Background: Patients presenting with acute pancreatitis may have co-existing chronic pancreatitis, the accurate diagnosis of which would potentially guide appropriate management. Gold standard tests are often invasive, costly or time-consuming, but the faecal elastase-1 assay has been shown to be comparatively accurate for moderate and severe exocrine deficiency. This study aimed to evaluate fecal elastase-1 concentration [FE-1] against clinical criteria for chronicity in an acute setting.

Introducing early medical abortion in Australia: there is a need to update abortion laws.

Recent changes to Federal Therapeutic Goods Administration legislation have seen the limited introduction of the drug mifepristone to Australia for the purpose of early medical abortion. At the same time it has become evident that both methotrexate and misoprostol, licenced and available for other indications, are being used safely and appropriately for early abortion by Australian medical practitioners. Early medical abortion is widely practiced overseas where its safety and effectiveness are well supported by current evidence.

Working collaboratively to support medical education in developing countries: the case of the Friends of Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences.

Context: Developing and sustaining medical schools in developing countries can be challenging. Some collaborations between medical schools in developing countries and one or more medical schools in developed countries have been helpful. However, medical schools in developing countries can be vulnerable to the sudden withdrawal of funds (particularly if they have only one partner).

Medical abortion for Australian women: it's time.

Medical termination of pregnancy with mifepristone, a progesterone antagonist, is available to women in North America, the United Kingdom, much of Western Europe, Russia, China, Israel, New Zealand, Turkey and Tunisia, but not Australia. Experience of mifepristone use in around two million abortions has shown that it is safe, effective, cheap to produce, and highly acceptable to women. Mifepristone is usually used in combination with a prostaglandin analogue, such as misoprostol; these drugs have been added to the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines for developing countries.

Throwing out the baby with the spa water?

Australia is now one of the safest countries in the world in which to be born. This is largely a result of the many advances in obstetric and neonatal medicine of the past 50 years. However, the "medicalisation" of birth has tended to diminish women's satisfaction with their experience of childbirth.

Early student-patient interactions: the views of patients regarding their experiences.

This study was designed to investigate the experience and attitudes of patients to being interviewed by first-year medical students. A questionnaire was sent to 120 patients who have been interviewed during the last four years. Patients were asked what they felt about the process, what they understood was the purpose of the interview and if they felt they had benefited in any way from the interview.