AMSA Ampoule

In today's episode, we mark the 6 month anniversary of Russia's war in Ukraine by speaking to Elise West, the Executive Officer of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. We discuss the impact of this war on the healthcare system in Ukraine, as well as Elise's career in medical activism. 

mapw.org.au

@mapw_australia

Hi there from Niveditha and Divay! We will be your hosts for the 2022 season of the AMSA Ampoule. Get ready for another year of in-depth conversations with new and exciting guests. Look forward to monthly episodes starting soon! 

In this episode, Jess Gregory talks about her experiences with medicine, discusses how young doctors are leading the culture of collaborative care and highlights the importance of supporting medical students and junior doctors with chronic illnesses.

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Jess is a 27 year old Australian living with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, Temporomandibular Joint Disorder, Fibromyalgia, PMDD, Migraine with Aura, and Sinus Tachycardia. She has memories of chronic pain, fatigue, and joint dislocations from the age of 12, but after her and her parents’ concerns were dismissed by multiple doctors, she felt she had no choice but to compartmentalise what was happening to her body and focus solely on her goal of pursuing a career in music.

Jess’ health declined significantly at the end of 2019 after a particularly nasty sinus infection. Despite this, she optimistically proceeded with her plans to move to Belgium, believing that she could “push through” and undertake her Master’s Degree there. In a turn of events that will surprise absolutely no one, wilfully ignoring her symptoms lead Jess to become severely unwell and bed bound for over a year.

During this time, Jess pushed for the more rigorous clinical evaluation that lead to her eventual diagnoses. She was then admitted to a specialised hospital rehabilitation program and she realised that she had an opportunity to change her life for the better. She could either keep living a lie and pretending that she was able bodied, or she could create a new life in which she worked with her body rather than against it.

She now runs Delicate Little Petal, a website where she writes about physical and mental health issues and hopes to help others avoid the same cycle of shame and isolation by opening up about her own messy journey to diagnosis.

She is particularly passionate about advocating for the normalisation of mobility aids and tackling the harmful systemic issues that delay the diagnosis of “invisible disabilities” like her own. She is also an ambassador of Healp.Co, a social networking site that also provides crowd sourced health information to those with chronic conditions.

Jess continues to live in Belgium with her fiancé Haydn, and their child cat, Adora. In her spare time she enjoys vintage fashion and makeup, pilates, swimming, and unapologetically consuming terrible reality TV!

You can find Jess on Instagram and Facebook at @delicatelittlepetal or on www.delicatelittlepetal.com.

Joining us today, we have Mr Phillip Antippa who is the director of the Lung Tumour Stream and director of Melbourne-based doctor's orchestra, Corpus Medicorum. In this episode we explore questions on the relationships between music and surgery, the use of performance enhancer in music and explore the potential of performance enhancers in surgery and medical training.

Remember to seek a doctor’s advice before trying any new medication. To find out more, please subscribe to the podcast on your preferred streaming platform, and follow us on the “AMSA Ampoule” Facebook page.

Have you ever thought about starting a family while in medicine? 😃

AMSA AMPOULE is here to share with you an exciting interview with Dr Sarah Syed (Geriatrics physician trainee) and Rami Dawood (final year student doctor). They are a beautiful couple, both in medicine, who have recently had a baby girl, Safiya!! In this episode, Rami & Sarah will share their experience with parenthood and provide amazing advice to those considering starting a family 😍

Dr David Juurlink is a Canadian pharmacologist, toxicologist and internal medicine doctor. He is known for researching adverse effects caused by drug interactions, as well as an entertaining but informative presence on twitter. Notably, David has been publicly critical of regular prescribing of dangerous opioids like Tramadol and fentanyl.

In this episode, Dr Juurlink walks me through the basics of opioids and the origin of the opioid epidemic. In doing so, we speak about how doctors can fall into the trap of overprescribing and what we can do to prevent that. 

In this episode, Liam is kind enough to share his story with bone marrow donation and leukaemia. Liam is currently running a fundraiser for the leukaemia foundation and he speaks to me about some the great stuff they did for him and his family. Their publications taught lil' Liam what leukaemia was (and how to spell it), put a roof over Liam's family's heads for 6 months in the Brisbane CBD, and gave them Christmas presents to top it all off. Liam has some entertaining but informative stories centered around the good that comes about from bone marrow donation and donation in general. We have a pretty lengthy chat about the state of Liam’s head, having grown out his hair for the fundraiser, and finish up by debunking some of the myths associated with marrow donation.

If you would like to donate to Liam's fundraiser, please click on the following link or find it on Liam's facebook page (Liam Virtue): https://secure.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?RegistrationID=793367&fbclid=IwAR2WkUnBJ0TpEye7-WFimetTj-Z2HVPT5ZoiBBhGfsllEFAulwv1pKmOW4M

Travis lines is a soon to be graduated MD/MPH student and our very own National Policy Officer for 2020. Travis is easily spotted in public, wearing at least one akubra and donning a pair of RMs at all times. Some say he even wears them swimming.

This episode serves as a great introduction to all things AMSA for the uninitiated and offers insight into what thoughts are generated under that red hair and great mane. We begin with discussion about xiao long bao and then transition into the process of policy making from its inception to its implementation. We cap off the episode with a heated debate regarding the proper use of the term 'footy' as well as some armchair epidemiology.

Dinesh Palipana OAM is an Australian doctor, legal professional and disability advocate. During medical school Dinesh was involved in a car accident and suffered a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia. That didn’t stop him though - Dinesh went on to finish medical school and became the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland. Since then, Dinesh became the team doctor for the Gold Coast Titans Physical Disability Rugby League team and became a founding member of Doctors with Disabilities Australia.

In this episode I chat to Dinesh about his journey through medicine and the massive hurdles he managed to overcome. We go on to speak about some of his advocacy work for Doctors with Disabilities Australia and finish on a conversation about how to approach life's challenges

Nick Earls writes long, short and medium-sized fiction, so far tallying 27 books for adults, teenagers and children. In addition to being a prolific Brisbane author, he is a University of Queensland Medical School Alumni and worked as a GP for 10 years. After leaving medicine for writing, Nick went full circle and is now teaching a creative writing course to second year medical students at UQ. Nick is full of anecdotes and never fails to entertain.

In this episode, we chat about Nick's transition from medicine into writing and how fiction can inform empathy in practice along with several hilarious insights into the life of an author.