Jayashri Kulkarni: Women admitted to psychiatry wards experience high levels of violence and sexual assaults, according to a report released this week by the Victorian Mental Illness Alliance Council. Across the nine different psychiatry hospital wards surveyed in Victoria, 85% of female inpatients felt unsafe during hospitalisation, 67% reported experiencing sexual or other forms of harassment [...]

Professor Caroline de Costa, from the James Cook University School of Medicine, and Dr Michael Carrette were the first clinicians in Australia to prescribe RU486, having pioneered the Authorised Prescriber approach. Below they provide insight into the implications of last week’s important decision to recommend PBS listing for RU486. The decision, announced last Friday by [...]

The media spotlight has been on the issue of female genital mutilation in the wake of recent arrests in NSW and Federal Government ambitions to eliminate the practice. While there are many positive aspects to the media’s coverage of this issue, Dr Jasmin Chen, from the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health in Melbourne, also suggests that [...]

Happy New Year to all Croakey readers – here are some thought provoking posts from around the Blogosphere to enliven your holiday…. As She Lay Dying: How I Fought To Stop Medical Errors From Killing My Mom By Jonathan R. Welch A (US) doctor talks about his struggle to get appropriate care for his mother. It’s [...]

The end-of-year edition of The Walkley Magazine (produced by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance) features several articles about the emergence of gender politics and sexism in public debates this year. Or as its cover says, “Sexism goes #boom”. In “Way to destroy the joint, Alan”, UTS academic and journalist Jenna Price notes that between [...]

Thanks to Reema Rattan for providing this wrap of recent health and medical reading at The Conversation. Topics covered include: the downside of energy drinks infant formula’s chequered past Nurofen marketing prostate cancer screening male circumcision some under-recognised cycling hazards women and cardiovascular disease back pain breast cancer screening. Energy drinks: a trigger for heart [...]

Entrepreneurs and philanthropists take note: below are some terrific ideas for new health-related online publications. Croakey recently put out a call on behalf of the Public Interest Journalism Foundation for ideas for online publications covering health-related areas of need. One of the pitches will be developed during a session at the New News conference, which will [...]

Social media channels offer new avenues for engaging young people in research, says Dr Yeshe Fenner, who is involved in a new study of young women’s health in Melbourne. *** Recruiting through social media – a brave new world Yeshe Fenner writes: The medical and health research community is facing a major challenge as traditional [...]

Professor Caroline de Costa writes: It is now more than a year since the trial of a young Cairns couple charged with procuring an abortion for the woman. A jury in the Cairns District Court unanimously rejected the charges but the couple spent an agonising eighteen months prior to the trial, the subject of intense [...]