Specialists in top 10 for Australian incomes
Doctors led by surgeons and anaesthetists hold five of the 10 top places for high-income earners in Australia, according to ATO statistics for the 2018-19 financial year.
Internal medicine specialists were in third spot, with average taxable income of $304,752, although earnings varied by jurisdiction, from $343,353 in Western Australia to $287,437 in NSW and $269,158 in the Northern Territory.
Surgeons were Australia’s most highly remunerated occupation, with an average taxable income of $394,303, followed by anaesthetists on $386,065. Psychiatrists were in 5th place on $235,558, while ‘other medical practitioners’, in 6th place, recorded average earnings of $222,933.
By way of comparison, the average taxable income for Australians was $62,549 overall, ($73,218 for males, $51,382 for females). Besides doctors other high income occupations included financial dealers in 4th place with $275,984, judges and lawyers (7th) with $188,798 and mining engineers (8th) with $184,507.
Australian CEOs and managing directors recorded average incomes of $164,896, (9th) and engineering managers rounded out the list with $159,940.
‘Liver branding’ surgeon can return to work
A UK transplant surgeon who ‘branded’ his initials on the livers of two anaesthetised patients has been allowed to return to practice.
Dr Simon Bramhall had his registration suspended in 2018 and was fined $18,000 after he admitted to using an argon beam coagulator to engrave his 4cm-high initials on the organs of transplant patients while working at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Dr Bramhall pleaded guilty to common assault after his initials were found by chance on a donor liver that had failed.
Sentencing him to a 12-month community order the judge described Dr Bramhall’s actions as ‘professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behaviour’.
A medical practice tribunal found him guilty of misconduct, impaired fitness to practice and ordered his registration to be suspended for five months.
In mitigation it heard that the surgeon was highly skilled, had an otherwise unblemished record and had shown remorse. It also noted that his actions had not put patients at risk clinically, and there was little or no risk of repetition.
However the five month suspension is being appealed by the General Medical Council on the grounds that it is too lenient. A panel said there was a need to reflect the impact that the surgeon’s conduct would have on public confidence in the medical profession.
Gastroenterologists call for ‘radical’ changes to Hep B testing
Melbourne gastroenterologists are calling for a ‘radical’ approach to hepatitis B testing across the country in the wake of new estimates that suggest there is only a 4.6% chance that Australia will reach its National Strategy targets of 80% of cases diagnosed by 2022.
Dr Nicole Allard and colleagues from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne say current risk-based screening approach for hepatitis B in Australia has barely improved the proportion of diagnosed cases in the last decade – only up from 63% in 2011 to 69% in 2018.
About 6000 people are newly diagnosed with hepatitis B each year, say the group, writing in the MJA this week.
But, with the growing number of Australian’s who have been born overseas in countries when there has been inadequate access to vaccination, it’s estimated the number of undiagnosed cases could be as high as 70,000. Now the expert group say it’s time for universal screening, suggesting that guidelines be updated to recommend that all Australians aged 20—79 years, whose hepatitis status has not been documented, should be offered testing.
Current National Hepatitis B Testing Policy lists 16 indications and 13 risk groups that should be considered for testing, some of which include all women who have been pregnant in the screening era, all adults at higher risk of infection, and any person with existing liver disease.
A universal approach would likely represent a relatively small expansion in the total number of people eligible given it’s ‘likely that most Australian adults already meet at least one of the current screening criteria’ the group states.
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