Category: Indigenous Health

Best Case Ever

This case comes from Dr Alex McLeod RHMS Taupō. ...

Of Art and Uncertainty

“In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” Richard Feynman...

Māori Health Matters

Confessions of a racist Doctor. I am racist.  I was born in an Australian capital city, a nation with a history of political non-compliance with The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to its mistreatment of indigenous peoples since 1788.  The 1901 White Australia policy excluded people of non-European ethnic...

Kai Māori

Chareese and Alex Henare. Are traditional low carb, healthy fat diets the key to reversing T2DM?...

Researching Remotely

You just can’t miss it. A grass green building with multi-coloured panels representing our frangipanis, sea and sand. The Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicines (AITHM) Tropical Research Centre (or as locals like to call it – the colour-colour building) was officially opened last fortnight on Thursday Island....

Rheumatic ❤️ Disease

‡ Yesterday I saw a four-year-old boy with school sores. The day before my colleague saw a 16-year-old girl with a fever and knee pain. Last week our visiting paediatric cardiologist saw an eight-year-old girl with a new cardiac murmur. Last month our clinic health worker saw a 25-year-old male receiving...

The Torres Approach to Hepatitis B

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is widespread in the Torres Strait. Over the last few years there has been a focused effort within the medical team to devise a strategy to ensure safe and appropriate diagnosis and management of CHB. Extensive consultation with the local workforce and relevant specialists guided...

Magnesium. What’s in it for ATSI?

As we improve our preventative health screening practices in Remote Indigenous Health we inevitably encounter incidental abnormalities in routine pathology. Given our limited resources and developing recall systems, what do we do about them? Hypomagnesemia is a common finding in population screening in the Torres Strait.  Epidemiological studies have...

A 25-year-old female with an Unusual Ulcer

This case has been inspired by events in the Torres Straits and details have been changed to ensure patient anonymity. History A 25-year-old female presented to the an outer island primary healthcare centre with a non-painful leg ulcer. She didn’t remember having a bite, sting, scratch or injury to...