Paul Smith joined Australian Doctor in 2004 and is its political editor. He has won numerous awards being named Australian Health Journalist of the Year in 2008 and 2009 by the National Press Club.
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The question being asked appears simple. Can you claim a level B for compiling or curating a patient's shared e-health summary? The answer lies with an 18-year-old student called James, who "lives at…
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As Philip Larkin once wrote “books are a load of crap” and there is no book crappier than the MBS book. Long, incoherent, rambling, nonsensical – but it is these very qualities that render it…
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The RACGP's move to measure the quality of GP care is a significant step which could have far-reaching ramifications - it doesn’t require a huge imagination to envisage Canberra being keen to set…
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Anyone wanting to unpick the tangled debate around Australia's use and alleged abuse of its international medical graduates -- specifically its IMGs on temporary visas -- has to ensure they do not…
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You can already hear the sound of the shovels -- the gravediggers making the hole in which they expect to bury Australia's personally controlled e-health system. It's worth pointing out we don't…
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I heard this story in the Australian Doctor office last week. It was about a patient, a GP, who went to see a specialist because of problems with her eye.
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It looks like yet another looming policy mess: the revamp of after-hours GP care by handing over responsibility for service provision and co-ordination to Medicare Locals. The Federal Health Minister…
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"Many permanent features in the geology of the health system remain hidden before periodically erupting into view -- hospital waiting lists, crumbling mental health services, adverse events, to name…
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"Political inquiries are a fine part of the democratic process. But even when they prod and probe, reveal the rights and wrongs, if, at the end of it all, the inquiry isn't kicking up a storm and…
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Twenty years ago, a horror story broke in NSW. A mentally ill, HIV-positive prisoner wat Long Bay Prison took a syringe filled with his blood and stabbed a probationary prisoner officer.