Gastroenterologist wins AMA’s highest award
The AMA’s highest award, the Gold Medal, has been awarded to neurogastroenterologist Laureate Professor Nick Talley in recognition of his outstanding services to medicine.
Professor Talley is the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Global Research, at the University of Newcastle and a Senior Staff Specialist and gastroenterologist at John Hunter Hospital, NSW.
His award was made at the Annual National Conference of the AMA, at which Federal President Dr Omar Khorshid said it was presented for exceptional service recognised by the winner’s medical peers in recognition of his or her advancement of the practice of medicine.
Dr Khorshid said Professor Talley’s award also recognised his role as editor in chief of the AMA’s Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), which had adapted to the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic by reorienting the peer review process and adopting pre-press publication to ensure emerging evidence of COVID-19 was presented in a timely way.
Under Professor Talley’s leadership, the MJA had achieved a very high impact factor with the number of citations of articles published to make it one of the top 17 medical journals globally.
Dr Khorshid said: “As a result of Professor Talley’s leadership and drive, the latest vital information about the novel and emerging COVID-19 pandemic was presented in a scientifically rigorous way to inform clinicians so we could take up the fight on the frontline armed with the latest insights.”
Post-pandemic bowel cancer crisis warning
Urgent action is needed to avoid a rise in colorectal cancers due to pandemic lockdown-related reductions in colonoscopies, accord to Bowel Cancer Australia
In a new report the group says pre-pandemic participation rates in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program were at 43.5%, and there were significant falls in screening, diagnostic and surveillance colonoscopies in 2020 as well as a reduction in colorectal cancer surgeries.
“Measures taken by governments to mitigate the spread of the virus and limit patient traffic have severely impacted cancer services across the country,” the report noted
“Cancellation of elective surgery, followed by a phased reopening at reduced capacity, has impacted the entire bowel cancer care pathway, and the consequences have been particularly acute for colonoscopy services.
“It is now more likely that patients will present with more advanced disease, require more complex treatments and experience poorer outcomes.”
The report also notes that colonoscopy wait times for people who received a positive screen range from between 112 and 173 days, far exceeding the recommended 30 days.
“Planning for post-pandemic colonoscopy catch-up and increasing ongoing capacity is urgently required as bowel cancer must not be forgotten in the long shadow of COVID-19,” said colorectal surgeon, Dr Graham Newstead AM.
“Otherwise, we risk undoing the gains made over the past 20 years,” he said.
Physicians absent from social media
While most physicians (70%) have some kind of social media presence the vast majority are not active, a study of 650 randomly selected doctors at the top 10 US hospitals has found.
Physicians were most likely to have a social media profile on LinkedIn (45%), followed by Facebook (23%) and Twitter 19%) and 7% had a blog or personal webpage.
However, almost 90% had no engagement on social media in recent months in terms of posts or interactions with other users, the survey found.
Physicians had a median of 99 followers on Twitter, 301 on Facebook and 161 followers on LinkedIn. Female physicians were more likely than males to have a social media presence, according to the findings published in JAMA Network Open..
The survey also showed that surgeons had higher number of followers than physicians and were also three times more likely to be active on social media.