Pomegranate Health

The avian flu H5N1 known as 2.3.4.4b has been tearing around the globe since 2021 causing significant mortality in sea birds and mammals. The Australian and New Zealand mainland were the last holdouts, but this virus was first detected near Esperance, WA on June 20th 2026 and then near Wellington, NZ on Jul 14th. Both cases involved a bird known as the brown skua, which travels across the Southern Ocean, and by August 24th the H5N1 had also been confirmed in fur seals in South Australia and associated with one seal death. While risk to humans from this clade is currently negligible, ID experts are concerned for the health of this domestic poultry and livestock, which have been hard hit internationally, and wild birds and marsupials which would be much harder to protect. This podcast discusses the surveillance and response from a One Health perspective. 
Guests
Michelle Wille PhD (University of Melbourne; Doherty Institute; WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza)
Associate Professor Michael Nissen MBBS FRACP FRCPA FFS (Royal Brisbane Hospital; Research Director, Prince Charles Hospital; University of Queensland.

Host
Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake FRACP (Canberra Hospital; Australian National University)
Production
Production by Mic Cavazzini DPhil AND Dr Candice Holland, ASID. Thanks also to Inge Meggitt, events coordinator at ASID. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘Exploring the Lake’ by View Points and ‘Emerlyn’ by Valante. Image copyright ASID (2026).
Visit the Pomegranate Health web page for a transcript and supporting references. Add educational activity to MyCPD. Subscribe through any podcasting app or our email alerts list.

Allergies to first-line antibiotics complicate care, and use of broad-spectrum alternatives is associated with prolonged hospital stays and increased rates of admissions to ICU. It also makes emergence of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens more likely. Ten to 16% of adult patients are marked in the record as being allergic to penicillins but the majority of these labels are applied inaccurately or have become outdated over time. 

While skin-prick testing is a safe and reliable way to delabel patients who can tolerate penicillin, it is resource-intensive and requires trained allergists on-site. In this podcast we describe a decision tool called PEN-FAST that helps to quickly identify patients suitable for direct oral challenge in almost any setting. Guests include two of the leading academics behind the validation and scale-up of this algorithm. 

Guests
Prof Jason Trubiano FRACP FAAAAI‍ (Austin Health, Director of Infectious Diseases; Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity)
Prof Suran Fernando FRACP FRCPA PhD OAM (recent!) (Royal North Shore Hospital; University of Sydney)
Dr Fionnuala Fagan FRACP FRCPA (Dunedin Hospital; Otago University) 
Chapters
10:42   PEN-FAST tool
22:23   Multi-site testing of PEN-FAST
28:27   Non allergist-led testing
32:42   System-wide outcomes
Production
Production by Mic Cavazzini DPhil. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘The Bayou’ and ‘Feels like I’m going Crazy’ by Tigerblood Jewel. Feedback on this episode kindly provided by Dr Marion Leighton, Dr Robin Sia, Dr Aidan Tan, Dr Hugh Murray, Arnika Martus and Paul Cooper PhD. Image courtesy of Thirteen of Clubs at Flickr.
Visit the Pomegranate Health web page for a transcript and supporting references. Add educational activity to MyCPD. Subscribe through any podcasting app or our email alerts list.

This popular episode was first published in 2019. Australia and NZ are made up of sprawling cities and far-flung towns and driving is often viewed as a fundamental freedom. It can be hard for clinicians to challenge that freedom with patients who they consider unfit to drive safely. And harder still to deal with the consequences if a patient does have a crash.
 
There are diagnoses that should raise red flags for driving fitness in various specialty areas, and a clinician can be drawn into the issue by two main pathways. The more straightforward is when a patient presents with a medical assessment form. It's the Driver Licencing Authority in each state which ultimately issues the driving permits and may require the recommendation of a medical professional. The other way is when the clinician detects a new or worsening condition in a patient who is already licenced. They are expected to warn their patients off driving and in some jurisdictions to report them to the DLA if this advice isn't being heeded.
Chapters
7:48     Legal expectations on a practitioner
17:20   Medical conditions affecting to fitness to drive
24:48   Considering age in driving performance
35:28   Approaching driving ‘retirement’
45:28   Updates to national standards
Guests
Dr Genevieve Yates FRACGP (Principal Medical Educator RACGP, MDA National's Education Services Advisory Group, Black Dog Institute)
Prof Roy Beran FRCP FAFPHM FRACP FRACGP FACLM (University of UNSW)
Marilyn Di Stefano PhD (Victorian Department of Transport and Planning)
Serge Zandegu (Victorian Department of Transport and Planning)
Production
Written and produced by Mic Cavazzini DPhil. Recording assistance in Melbourne from Sam Loy of Human/Ordinary. Music courtesy of Free Music Archive; 'John Stockton Slow Drag' and 'What True Self? Feels Bogus, Let's Watch Jason X' by Chris Zabriskie, 'Noir' by Daniel James Dolby, 'Hélice' by Monplaisir. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘Knowledge is Power’ by Matt Large. 
Visit the Pomegranate Health web page for a transcript and supporting references. Add educational activity to MyCPD. Subscribe through any podcasting app or our email alerts list.

This is the second episode of in the series, [Contagious Conversations] from the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases. Expert guests in this series will come from right across the interface of research, clinical care and public health.

In today’s episode we look at the immense progress that has been made over three decades in the management of HIV. Once a fatal diagnosis, the disease can now be completely controlled by anti-retroviral therapy. Access to prophylactic treatment has also made a huge impact on rates of transmission in the community although barriers still remain to equitable access.

Guests
Professor Sharon Lewin OA FRACP PhD (Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Director; University of Melbourne; Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics, Director)
Professor Dato’ Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman FRACP FASc (Monash University Malaysia, President & Pro Vice-Chancellor; Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS).
Richard Keane (Living Positive Victoria, CEO)

Host
Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake FRACP (Canberra Hospital; Australian National University)

Production
Production supported by Mic Cavazzini DPhil, and the Viral Hepatitis and HIV Special Interest Group particularly Dr Emma Paige and Dr Sushena Krishnaswamy. Thanks also to Inge Meggitt, events coordinator at ASID. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘Exploring the Lake’ by View Points and ‘Emerlyn’ by Valante. Image copyright ASID (2026).
Visit the Pomegranate Health web page for a transcript and supporting references. Add educational activity to MyCPD. Subscribe through any podcasting app or our email alerts list.

This episode is a teaser for RACP LIFT 2026, a series of in-person events to promote Learning, Innovation and Forward Thinking. Coming up on the 1st of August in Melbourne there will be a Rapid Fire Clinical Update on Respiratory medicine, infectious diseases and critical illness. And on the 20th In Brisbane another one themed around Palliative medicine and also population health. In March, the Sydney RACP offices hosed a meeting on cardiometabolic and vascular health, and the talk shared here covers everything a generalist needs to know about metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease. 
The seminar was presented by Professor Jacob George, Director of the Storr Liver Centre at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, and author of over 1300 peer-reviewed papers. He explains why fatty liver disease is a "canary in the coal mine" for metabolic health more generally, how to diagnose using scans and bloods, and the use of the FIB-4 index. Professor George also describes how patients can be stratified and managed for risk of more complex liver disease and reviews outcomes from the latest pharmacological interventions. 
 
Guests
Professor Jacob George FRACP PhD FAASLD (The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Centre Director; University of Sydney)

Chapters
3:09     MAFLD is a positive definition
4:29     How common are MAFLD and MASH?
5:58     How do you define metabolic health?
9:02     Mortality and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with T2D
10:07   MAFLD in primary care guideline
12:40   Current and future therapies for MAFLD / MASH
15:24   Management algorithm for MAFLD
16:50   Test your knowledge

Production
Rapid Fire Clinical Update developed by LIFT advisory group and hosted/recorded by RACP Events team and. Podcast production by Mic Cavazzini DPhil. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘Kryptonite’ by Blue Steel and ‘Simmering Anxiety’ by Christian Andersen and ‘Little Liberty’ by Paisely Pink. 
Visit the Pomegranate Health web page for a transcript and supporting references. Add educational activity to MyCPD. Subscribe through any podcasting app or our email alerts list.