This year I was in Cairns for NAIDOC week, and the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair which was held the following week. It brought back so many of memories from 2010 when I did 3 trips to provide primary eye care in indigenous communities in Cape York and also to Yarrabah, just south of Cairns.

I remember how amazing the support staff Lance and Noel were on those trips. They showed me the ropes of how to best help their peoples. I remembered how it was “the Dons” that is, the Director of Nursing in each community basically ran those communities. They knew everyone’s health status and life situation, and were always there for everything from when disaster struck to taking care of the little things.

I remember doing my best to help people as much as I could, but deep down wondering if I was part of the problem or part of the solution. It was all very well for the eye team (sometimes we had an ophthalmologist on the trips too) to blow into town 3 times a year, but what about the in between times? And what about the things the patients didn’t feel comfortable telling us because we weren’t their mob?

I remember thinking that we needed to raise a generation of Indigenous health professionals to really help Close The Gap. So in July this year I was so excited to see the New South Wales Medical Students’ Council’s Facebook posts about indigenous students (male and female) and what they’re up to. This is where it’s at.

It was an absolute privilege to be able to attend exhibitions, the fashion parade and workshops at Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF). To learn basket weaving and to see it being done so beautifully (not by me – mine was terrible!!) was such a treat. It was the fashion parade in particular that stood out. It occurred to me that it might be possible to work with Indigenous designers to do a range of items such as bags, scarves, pyjamas and other items of clothing with some of the proceeds being directed back into health programs in the indigenous communities. I will be looking into this in the coming months.

My Health Career lead writer Sab Ocampo had a look at what was happening in the industry for NAIDOC week. Following is her story.

Health industry organisations—Exercise & Sports Science Association, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM), and Australasian College of Dermatologists across Australia commemorated this event in various ways. Some used the event to remind the government to prioritize the close the gap campaign. While others stayed true to the theme “Because of her, we can” by honouring wonderful women of indigenous origin.

ESSA focused on advocating for physical activity among indigenous people as reports reveal that in 2012–13, about 2 in 3 (64%) ATSI adults aged 18 and over in non-remote areas were not sufficiently active.

And while statistics reveal increased percentage of physically active indigenous people aged 4-14 to 76% in 2014-15, physical activity still accounts for about 8% of health burden among indigenous people (compared to 6.6% in non-Indigenous Australians).

Anita Hobson-Powell, ESSA Chief Executive Officer said, “Higher rates of sedentary behaviours are associated with an increased risk of chronic disease. Improving physical activity levels presents a significant opportunity for health improvements and for reducing the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.”

Bree Sauer, Accredited Exercise Physiologist and proud Iman tribe woman explains, “It is really important that we encourage our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mothers, Aunties, daughters, young sisters and cousins to be active.”

ESSA also celebrated the accomplishments of these inspiring women of sports:

• Cathy Freeman, OAM – the first Australian Indigenous person to become a Commonwealth Games gold medallist at age 16. This was in 1990 for the 4 × 100m relay.
• Nova Peris-Kneebone, OAM – the first Aboriginal Australian to win an Olympic gold medal. This was at the 1996 Olympic Games with the Australian women’s hockey team, the Hockeyroos.
• Rohanee Cox – plays for Sydney Uni Flames for the Women’s NBL and was the first indigenous woman to win a basketball medal for Australia.
• Ashleigh Gardner – plays for the Sydney Sixers in the Australian Women’s Big Bash League and was the first indigenous woman to play in a cricket World Cup.
• Kira Phillips – plays for Fremantle Dockers and was the first player of indigenous descent to score in the Women’s AFL.

“We are so proud of these deadly women who inspire and encourage our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mothers, Aunties, daughters, sisters and cousins to become more involved in sport and exercise in the community” says Bree.

The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine paid tribute to the Indigenous women doctors working in the health care frontline highlighting the contributions as health professionals and their importance as role models.

As ACRRM President Associate Professor Ruth Stewart said, “You can’t be what you can’t see.

“That’s why it’s important the College encourages more Indigenous men and women into our training programs; to be the example to others who are considering a career in medicine.

“Because of her we can is about recognising and celebrating the achievements of indigenous women whose voices and passion have paved the way for current generations and future generations.

“Women like Donna Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and Rural Medicine Australia 2018 keynote speaker. We are very excited to have Donna, an influential member of the Aboriginal health community speaking at RMA18. She is a wonderful example of the strength and abilities of women in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and what can be achieved in these communities when your work holds cultural respects at its heart.” President Stewart stated.

Australasian College of Dermatologists revisited updates for the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) released last year which aims for better skin care of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Dr Ian McCrossin, a dermatologist with the ACD who dedicated his career to improve health outcomes for the indigenous community said, “My travels have given me an appreciation of the unique challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people growing up in local rural communities. I have had the absolute privilege of visiting remote communities in Arnhem Land with Aboriginal Health Workers and learning part of the Yolgnu culture.”

He continued, “Working on the RAP has been a great project to promote training and education

on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander skin health. We have also successfully obtained

Commonwealth Government funding for a dedicated training position for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors to specialise in dermatology through the Committee of Presidents of Medical Colleges Indigenous Affairs Committee.”

More articles on My Health Career:

• Is mindfulness “right” for you? Here’s how it transformed my practice – by Amanda Griffiths, founder MHC
• Two dietitians, two orthoptists and a microbiologist are asked “what do you love about your job?” Here are their responses…….
• Loving your company culture – by Amanda Griffiths, founder MHC

The post The Inspiring Indigenous Women of Health Care – by Amanda Griffiths and Sab Ocampo appeared first on My Health Career.

I find that one of the biggest issues with mindfulness is that there are a lot of people out there claiming to be mindfulness experts, teachers or gurus who are really just creating “McMindfulness”. It’s like the fast-food version where you know it’s been processed and doesn’t really resemble the ingredients from which it was made. Yes, it’s still “food” but you can tell that it’s not the natural and organic experience of food that you’re really looking for. Don’t get me wrong, some of these “McMindfulness” teachers have good intentions. That’s where it can become a very confusing journey.

This video here is the best I’ve ever seen on looking at what mindfulness is in a succinct way. In it, Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally.”

I think it’s the “non-judgementally” bit where it’s so easy to get caught up. It’s as though we think that if we just stopped having judgemental thoughts that we’d be “all good”. So then we try to supress those judgemental thoughts. I did this A LOT at the beginning of my mindfulness journey. I have also spoken with a great number of people on my mindfulness journey who are judging themselves for having judgements.

Where mindfulness really comes in is watching the judgements go by, and just noticing them. As in “oh look, a judgement” and letting it pass without judging it, or judging yourself for having a judgemental thought. It has nothing at all to do with the absence of judgements, as these will continue to arise and pass, arise and pass, arise and pass, on and on, forever and ever.

So how does this all relate to practice as a health professional?

The judgements we are talking about here are not the clinical judgements we as clinicians make every day. I’m talking about the stuff that happens in our interactions with patients that really aren’t helpful.

So let’s go with an example that’s close to home for me. The scenario being that I’d put on quite a bit of weight and was feeling very self-conscious about it. How is that going to play out when someone who is obese comes in for a consultation?

I have had so many experiences around this over the years, most of them in the form of judgements coming up in my mind. Anything from “how could they let themselves get like that?” to “they should go and get surgery” to “don’t they know how to look after themselves?” to “they are so ugly” and “how can they live with themselves being like that?”.

So really I was just projecting my own “stuff” onto these patients. It’s a pretty normal human thing to do, and it happens all the time. Having these judgemental thoughts made me very anxious and awkward, because they were feeding the belief that I was a horrible person and an awful health practitioner, because we’re supposed to treat everyone with respect.

However, over the course of my mindfulness journey I realised that the issue wasn’t with these thoughts themselves. It’s that I was judging myself for having these thoughts. The day I realised that was when everything really changed.

It occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to bring compassion to myself for having these judgemental thoughts instead of judging myself for having those judgemental thoughts. That is quite a distinction, and, I feel where many of those claiming to be “gurus” but area really just perpetuating McMindfulness get it so very wrong.

So many of these “gurus” spout ideals that we need to change our thoughts to be more positive so that we can be “happy”. However, once you really get into a deeper mindfulness practice, there is the realisation that the joy of simply being is always there, regardless of whether whatever is happening in the present moment is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. It’s the simple joy of being alive and actually having these experience that flows like a river in experience itself.

This leads me into another way in which not only mindfulness, but the practice of meditation is often misconstrued. There seems to be this myth that it’s all going to be sunshine and lollipops. That you “should” be feeling more relaxed after you meditate.

The reality is, that when the mind is really still during meditation, sometimes the most painful memories come up with an invitation for them to be explored. At 4 of the 5 meditation retreats I’ve attended in the last 12 months, I have cried. No, wept. No, sobbed uncontrollably. Sometimes in the meditation hall when everyone else is quiet. It’s just the way in which my body lets go of stuff. When the mind has really settled it’s given me the opportunity to look at some of the experiences I’ve had in a new light, and let go of the old way of seeing them. Inevitably this process can get pretty messy.

Letting go of these old ways of seeing things has changed the way I see myself and interact with others and the world. Being in the present moment as it is, without some story about how it should be or how I want it to be is an entirely different way of practice as a health professional. In many cases it has allowed me to have a much deeper listening of what the patient is communicating during our interaction, and allows me to be a lot clearer in my communication.

So yes, meditation and mindfulness practice has helped me to find a greater sense of calmness in so many situations, but that has been the by-product, not necessarily the aim.

I hope you enjoy our Mindful May theme this month and see it as part of your exploration as to whether taking up the practice might be right for you.

Image:Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

More articles on My Health Career:

• Choosing a business coach – by Amanda Griffiths, founder MHC
• From freaking out to freaking awesome – how mindfulness transformed my practice – by Amanda Griffiths
• AMA Summit on medical workforce: Too many doctors, few training opportunities in communities that need them most

The post Is mindfulness “right” for you? Here’s how it transformed my practice – by Amanda Griffiths, founder MHC appeared first on My Health Career.

“I really do love my job as an Accredited Practising Dietitian. I love people, so being able to help people to improve their well-being, their quality of life and their understanding of their health concerns really does make me happy. I love being able to use my university trained knowledge to teach them what’s going on for them, knowing that I’m giving them the best possible, evidence-based, personalised advice to improve their health outcomes.

I also love that I run my own business and am in control of what goes on in it. I can plan to take days off when I want/need to, I don’t have to answer to anyone, I don’t have to rely on anyone, and I can try new ideas and shape it the way that I want it to be for the best possible outcomes for my clients.”

Sally Marchini is an Accredited Practising Dietitian who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes almost 40 years ago and then coeliac disease 13 years ago. It was that second chronic disease diagnosis that inspired her to go to university to become a dietitian, both to benefit her own health and lead by example to help others to enjoy life/food when dealt a condition related to food intake. Sally sees clients from all over Australia via Skype for all types of diabetes, coeliac disease and food intolerances.

Josh Reed, founder of Reed Nutrition said:

“I get to research, interpret, write and communicate evidence based nutrition science into easily understood information. I get to motivate, improve the health of and empower people. I also get to learn how to improve my own health. Who wouldn’t want a career that teaches you how to live better everyday.”

Josh Reed, the founder of Reed Nutrition and Reed Fit, is a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics with Distinction graduate from the University of Newcastle. He also holds a Certificate III and IV in Fitness from the Fitness Institute of Australia.

Dr Petra Derrington, Ambassador for Pathology Awareness Australia said:

“As a microbiologist, I deal with the results of patients from every speciality so I can get calls from paediatrics to orthopaedics and everything in between. When the phone rings, it can be anything at all coming in from any area and I find that challenging. I never stop learning and bacteria and viruses are always changing and doing new and interesting things to keep me on my toes. The more I learn, the more fascinated I become. This speciality is moving ahead so very quickly in all areas of diagnostics, and keeping ahead of this is very challenging.

As Executive Director of Pathology Queensland, I have responsibility to ensure that our laboratory is functioning in the most efficient way, that we have happy and healthy staff who feel supported, empowered and vital, and that our clients get the best service. It is such an honour to have this job.”

Jane Schuller, Victoria President of Orthoptics Australia said:

“I was drawn to a career in orthoptics after I spent a day as a high school student at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. I couldn’t fathom how an organ so small could have so many subspecialties and almost an entire hospital devoted to its care. I was totally captivated by all the science and technology and that was the moment my future career became clear.

Being an orthoptist has allowed me to pursue a diverse number of roles, greater flexibility in work life balance and an abundance of new challenges. It has enabled me to work in private ophthalmology clinics, be involved in research and clinical trials, work in large teaching hospitals and change specialities throughout my career. Orthoptics is unique in that it has allowed me to continue working overseas and experience eye care from a different perspective. Working abroad has taught me about other healthcare systems and how to respect cultural differences whilst building on a strong foundation already established in Australia.

I love my career as an orthoptist because every day I use my technical skills to help diagnose and treat patients with eye diseases. In my job I’ve learnt other valuable skills such as how to listen and to have empathy so I can strive to be better at what I do.”

Jane graduated from LaTrobe University with a Diploma of Applied Science in Orthoptics and later completed a Masters of Public Health in Statistics and Epidemiology at Melbourne University in 2001. After several years working abroad in Singapore, Bangkok and the USA, she completed her American Orthoptic Certification in 2008 before returning to Australia in 2014. She has published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at scientific meetings and is currently the Victorian President of Orthoptics Australia. She continues to work in the Ocular Motility Clinic at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Bayside Eye Specialists and is the founder of EyeBytes.

Orthoptist Natalie Ainscough said:

“I have always been a talkative person, from age 4 I was called “Chatty Natty” by my reception teacher. So it seemed that a job role that involved communication was always in the stars for me. Orthoptics wasn’t a career I thought about until around age 16, when I was reminded of the intensive eye treatment I underwent as a child. Once I looked into the career more, I realised it was made for me and that was my heart set on becoming an orthoptist.

Almost 10 years into working as an orthoptist, I have the privilege of working in a fantastic team of ophthalmologists, optometrists, orthoptists, nurses and administrators at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide. My patients are all 18 and under, and I spend much of my day running orthoptic clinics assessing vision and eye position, working alongside medical staff in their clinics, imaging various parts of the eye, creating treatment plans for amblyopia (lazy vision) and coordinating the highest quality care for our eye patients.

My job has allowed me to move from the UK to Australia, and share my skills there, as well as gaining a range of skills working with students, helping coordinate the retinoblastoma service (childhood eye cancer) as well as being one of the South Australian representatives on the Orthoptics Australia council advocating for our fantastic profession.”

Natalie Ainscough graduated with honours when she completed her Orthoptics degree from the University of Liverpool in 2008 where she was awarded the British and Irish Orthoptic Society’s Haddick Prize. She also completed a Masters of Medical Science (Vision Science and Strabismus) in 2014 from the University of Sheffield.

For 3 years, she worked as an AHP2 Orthoptist at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide. Currently working as an Orthoptic Clinical Coordinator she focuses on developing an Orthoptic Triage service and extending the role of the orthoptists at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Natalie holds the position of South Australian representative for Orthoptics Australia while also being a member of Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) in UK and Australian Orthoptic Board.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Three psychologists on their love for work and love for life
• Loving your company culture – by Amanda Griffiths, founder MHC
• On treating individuals like a patient and not a disease – By Dr Warrick Bishop

The post Two dietitians, two orthoptists and a microbiologist are asked “what do you love about your job?” Here are their responses……. appeared first on My Health Career.

Looking back, I had assumed two things. Get ready to cringe……

I thought that I would just put together a one paragraph mission statement on what My Health Career is about and that would be that.

I thought that if I just did things the way I thought they should be done, that everyone in the company would just naturally follow suit.

Oh how wrong I was!!

I remember what changed for me in the process of sitting in that November conference hearing the presenter speak on how important it is to set company culture. He talked about a company whose owner he knew personally who had installed a rock climbing wall in their building. Whenever someone in the company did something great, they would be given a card to put at the top of the wall after climbing up. Everyone else would gather around at the bottom of the wall and clap and cheer them on in the process. Again I have tears in my eyes just thinking about how something like that can really bring a team together and create an inspired community.

The part that really blew me away though was when someone who had created their company culture got up to share the values he had brought into his business. He talked about love. As in love being one of the values of his business. This really knocked it out of the park for me because I realised that in My Health Career I had the opportunity to bring in all those things that I think are important personally. From that second onwards the vision of some stuffy corporation I had in my mind (which is what I thought MHC would have to become, and I was internally resisting this) completely went out the window.
I realised that this isn’t how business has to be.

I saw how wrong I’d been in the view that I didn’t think it was “appropriate” to bring all that mindfulness, compassion and “general mushy stuff” I’ve been personally cultivating into the business environment.

Businesses are made up of humans – both inside the business and outside the business. It’s us, our staff, our patients, our clients, our suppliers. WE’RE ALL PEOPLE!! We all want to be treated well, and we all want to deal with great businesses and work in great workplaces.
So back to the conference……

I really liked the approach they presented on company culture. It’s an important tool in staff recruitment, because in bringing on someone new, that person knows what behaviours they are agreeing to.

Going back to the “love” example. If staff in that company were not dealing with each other in a way that was loving, there would be a conversation about it. The discussion would go along the lines of “hey, we agreed that we treat each other in a loving way, do you think that behaviour is showing love?”
Wow! How simple does it then become to maintain that culture in the business?!?! And how cool is it that companies with culture like this exist?

Again, going back to the conference it was then suggested that we, the business owners come up with our most important values, and then ask our staff to do the same. The values would then be conglomerated to produce a single document of the top 5-6 values. At that time I’d just taken on Sab as a new article writer and future blog manager, and so it made perfect sense to see what was important to her in her first weeks of working at My Health Career.

The other instructions that we were given was that the values had to mean something to us. That we would feel something internally that we connect with. Here’s what Sab and I came up with. I know it sounds cliché, but it really does inspire us. But actually, you know, for real!! And it will set the tone for anyone else we bring on board, and how we deal with everyone we come in contact with.”

Amanda Griffiths is the founder of My Health Career. Since starting the website she has been an invited speaker for organisations including the Career Development Association of Australia and Career Education Association of Victoria, myfuture, and the Master of Ceremonies at the HealthFusion Team Challenge. She graduated from her optometry degree with first class honours in 2003, and spent two years as a part-time clinical supervisor of optometry students in a university setting. Amanda has worked as an optometrist in full time, part time and locum roles that have stretched from far north Queensland to Tasmania and Western Australia.

Love heart image: Photo by Jamez Picard on Unsplash

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“I ended up as a cardiologist by chance.

As a young fellow at high school, I was good at mathematics and technical drawing together with physics and chemistry and thought my career would be in engineering. As fate would have it, I had the opportunity to do work experience in a local civil engineering company at that time. Not understanding what civil engineering was, over two weeks I observed mainly office based work focusing on retaining walls and draining systems. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is was a fair representation of the breadth and interest that engineering could offer, but I didn’t know that and I was no longer enthusiastic about engineering from the experience.

Because of my science background, I thought that I would apply for medicine and was somewhat surprised when I was subsequently accepted. There is no question that the medical degree was an interesting and challenging one, and through those years I found myself drawn to the processes of internal medicine more so than the skills of surgery.

When I eventually finished my internship in junior years and looked to training, I started in different areas of internal medicine and found that although I had an enthusiasm for haematology (the study of blood disorders) the fact that I was colour blind meant that I couldn’t appreciate the special stains and colours that were required for diagnosis as seen under a microscope. Haematology was put aside. My time subsequently was spent in gastroenterology, respiratory medicine, rheumatology, oncology and renal medicine. For various reasons, these different specialities also didn’t quite sit with me.

I then eventually dropped into cardiology, more by luck than by good fortune. As it turned out at the time, cardiology was a dynamic area. This was in the era that clot-busting medications were being used in the acute setting of heart attack. Bypass surgery was available and ballooning of tight arteries which subsequently became ballooning and stenting of tight arteries or narrowed arteries was just starting to appear on the horizon. At the same time there were exciting trials looking at the treatment of cardiac failure. Overall, cardiology really was a space where there was an opportunity to see great improvement from the care given.

Over the years as a trainee, I learnt about disease.

Subsequently, as a specialist, I have learnt about people.

It has been a tremendous realisation that within the realm of my profession I am able to make a real and meaningful difference in people’s lives on a daily basis.

I am always grateful for the opportunity to have time with students and junior doctors and I particularly try to make a point of sharing with them what I have found from sitting in my consulting room rather than what I have found from the books. The most important points I share with these up-and-coming doctors are the following:

1. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. So as part of every consultation and ongoing management strategy, there is a requirement to try to engage with the patient in a way that makes them realise that they are not just a disease but an individual who needs help and care.

2. That the job is a privilege. In so many ways, we need to be careful not to take the job for granted. In our office, people we have never met will often share things with us that they would not share with anyone else. We have the opportunity to truly make a difference in their lives for better or for worse and we need to be aware of the implication of that responsibility. Doctors are given respect often without question and to not treat that with care is an embarrassment to the entire profession. The Government in Australia even support the income of doctors through the Medicare system, ensuring that not only patients are cared for but that the doctors are able to access funds for their work. It is not uncommon that the doctors in the hospitals get the best car parks and may even get free coffees at the coffee shop. These privileges need to be recognised and we need to be humble in accepting them. To not do so is arrogance.

3. Lastly, it is important to go the extra mile. Often is the case that whatever the patient’s actual presenting problem is, it may not necessarily fall within cardiology. If that is the case, I would see it as my role not to simply end the consultation and send the patient away but to genuinely try and find the next step toward what is required for that individual to have their particular need sorted out. It is professionalism that dictates that we need to, as best as possible, be holistic in our care and do whatever we can in our means to make sure that we are responsible until we have found another responsible professional to pick up the batten for an individual patient.

In regard to the concept of going the extra mile, I have written a book. This was born out of a realisation that there is an important conversation that needs to be had within the community around the role of cardiac CT imaging for cardiovascular disease prevention. Currently, the information is broadly limited, and the application of the technology is therefore limited. The opportunity, however, is enormous, and so I have written a book to try and educate the public so that they may have an educated and meaningful conversation with their own doctor about their own health and be proactive for their own care.

There is no question that from time to time, the job has been hard work, demanding and stressful, however, on balance, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

Dr Warrick Bishop is a cardiologist with special interest in cardiovascular disease prevention incorporating imaging, lipids and lifestyle. He is the author of #1 International Best Seller “Have You Planned Your Heart Attack?” with over 20,000 copies in print; the book is a discussion for patients and doctors about how we can be most precise about cardiovascular risk and save lives!

Graduating from the University of Tasmania’s School of Medicine in 1988, Dr Bishop has worked in the Northern Territory and in South Australia before completing his advanced training in cardiology in Hobart, Tasmania. He became a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and Member of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in 1997.

You can find out more about Dr Bishop on his website www.drwarrickbishop.com.

The post On treating individuals like a patient and not a disease – By Dr Warrick Bishop appeared first on My Health Career.

The Red Cross dental clinics, usually scheduled quarterly on Saturdays from 9am to 5pm, aim to provide dental services for refugees applying for immigration at ADA NSW Centre for Professional Development’s clinical facilities in St Leonards.

According to ADA NSW, scheduling the first Red Cross dental clinic of the year on a Wednesday accommodates more patients and volunteers who are unavailable during the weekend.

The schedules of the dental clinics in 2018 are as follows:

• Wednesday 31 January
• Saturday 10 March
• Saturday 16 June
• Saturday 6 October
• Saturday 8 December

Thirty two appointments will be accepted at each clinic. Patients are required to be involved in Red Cross asylum seeker support programs to qualify for treatment. The treatments available include extractions, fillings, scale and clean treatments, and limited pulpotomies and pulpectomies.

Volunteer dentists, dental nurses and dental students will facilitate the treatments.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Australian Dental Industry Association wins Association of the Year
• $54.4 investment to boost clinical training in regional Australia
• Australian Dental Association priorities for the 2017-18 Federal Budget

The post Red Cross dental clinics for refugees and asylum seekers in Sydney appeared first on My Health Career.

Minister for Indigenous Health, Ken Wyatt AM, said legendary Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga and other indigenous and non-indigenous players would become ambassadors for the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health’s Deadly Choices program, to extend its reach across Australia.

“Deadly Choices is what I like to call a ‘jewel in the crown’ of indigenous health, achieving some stunning results since it kicked off in South East Queensland four years ago,” the Minister said.

“The Deadly Kangaroos is an expansion of this program, using the star power of the ambassadors and the excitement of this year’s World Cup to reach more even communities.

“Our national rugby league stars need to be in peak physical condition to play at the top of their game and we appreciate the players’ support to start discussions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about ways to improve their health.”

Deadly Choices is a community-based health lifestyle campaign launched in 2013. Through media campaigns, sports carnivals and community events it has prompted:

• Almost 19,000 annual health checkups in South East Queensland
• Active patient numbers to triple to over 330,000
• 1,155 smoke-free household pledges
• More than 3,300 smoker interventions

The Rugby League World Cup is Rugby League’s premier international competition.
First held in 1954, the 2017 Rugby League World Cup is the 15th iteration of the historic tournament.

The 2017 Rugby League World Cup will feature 14 men’s and 6 women’s teams from around the globe hosted in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

#DeadlyRoos will be the hashtag used for the campaign.

Image:    Wikimedia Commons

The post #DeadlyRoos World Cup campaign to improve ATSI health appeared first on My Health Career.

A recent study by German and Switzerland’s researchers wanted to explore the idea that generous behaviour is driven by the positive emotion that it evokes and investigate how generosity is linked to happiness on the neural level.

The study recruited 50 participants who then randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. In the first experiment, they were told to be given 25 Swiss francs in each of the following four weeks. The former group had to spend money on others, and the latter had to spend money on themselves.

The second experiment then had the participants complete an independent decision-making task while the researchers measured their blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses. First, they selected a person to whom they wanted to give a present, and in each trial, presented with an option that they could accept or reject. Each option was a combination of gaining money for the other person and losing money to the participant.

The researchers found that striatal activity during generous decisions is directly related to changes in happiness. This explains how the experimental group, which was more likely to make generous choices than the control group, reported a greater increase in happiness, or what the researchers describes as ‘warm glow’.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Really? Can being connected with others and our purpose in life make us live longer?
• Kindness and compassion to avoid practitioner burnout and aid patient healing
• How to be a Happy Health Practitioner – by optometrist Carina Trinh

The post Happiness can be found in generosity towards others appeared first on My Health Career.

The study began in 1994-1995 and involved 7,108 participants between the ages of 20–75. Recruitment was based on the study’s original goals.

Among the results of the study over 14 year assessment area:

• 569 participants died (approximately 9% of the sample). 8 died between 28–39 years of age, 38 between 40–49, 93 between 50–59, 156 between 60–69, 194 between 70–79, and 80 died at age 80 or beyond.
• The deceased were significantly older, more likely to be male, less educated, less likely to be employed, but did not differ in race.
• Deceased individuals scored lower on purpose in life and positive relations with others

The results showed that purposeful individuals lived longer than their counterparts. These longevity benefits do not appear to be conditional on either the participants’ age, how long they lived, or whether they had retired from the workforce. It is concluded that a having a purpose appears to widely buffer against mortality risk across the adult years.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Kindness and compassion to avoid practitioner burnout and aid patient healing
• Just when you thought multitasking was efficient…. Think again…
• How to be a Happy Health Practitioner – by optometrist Carina Trinh
• Is mindfulness for everyone? What do psychologists have to say?

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For my entire twelve and eleven twelfths year career as an optometrist I’d struggled with my emotions. I think it had started when I was a new graduate in 2004, and because the repetitive thought pattern stayed on, I was always second-guessing everything I did, being completely paranoid about “missing something” and somebody going blind or losing vision, and comparing my consultation records to that of the previous optometrist secretly hoping that they hadn’t noticed anything I’d overlooked. This went on for years, until November 2016.

But I was the master at hiding my deepest, darkest fears.

So many people I’d worked with over those years had asked me what my secret was because I looked like I had it alltogether and was always able to handle whatever came my way in the practice. I always brushed it off, citing “I don’t know” or “I just want to do a good job,” which was true.

However, what was also true was that I was dying on the inside.

I was always freaking out that no matter what I did for my patients, and that no matter how hard I tried, it would never be enough. There would always be things I’d overlooked or not managed well, and I was constantly freaking out that patients would come back to complain about me.

Looking back now it makes me laugh. And then almost cry. And then get caught in this sick feeling that the vast majority of practitioners in the health industry, who are technically competent, are caught up in the same pattern of thinking that I used to find myself in.

And I say used to because my practice as an optometrist was completely transformed in November last year when mindful self-compassion showed up for me for the first time. And I should say that it “showed up” because I had a number of mindfulness teachers guiding me through the process of cultivating it. And I’d cultivated it to the point where it literally just “showed up” when I needed it because I was “in trouble”.

The day mindful self-compassion just showed up

So let’s set the scene…….. I was in a practice, in, let’s call it “Cooma” in NSW (which it wasn’t, it actually wasn’t in NSW at all)….. but anyway……

So I was in “Cooma” locuming for a week, and morale in the practice was really low. There were staff who had been in hospital due to ill-health secondary to stress, people not showing up for work because mentally they needed a day off, and a manager who genuinely wanted to do a good job, but was completely overwhelmed. The patient flow in the practice with 3 optometrists was way too much for the number of dispensing staff, and so things were a bit out of hand. The manager was constantly in a passive-aggressive state, the regular optometrists weren’t coping and so I was taking up the slack. On this particular Thursday, it was my turn to cop the passive-aggressive talking-down from the manager.

It’s about now that I ask…… what would you have done in this situation?

I’ll give you the run down on what happened for me……..

The three elements of self-compassion showed up. So it was perhaps a little unorthodox in the actual words (and when I say words, I mean thoughts – I didn’t say anything out loud, and this all happened in a few seconds) that went with it, but you will get my drift:

1. This is s*#t. (mindful awareness)
2. Sometimes life is s*#t. (common humanity)
3. What do I need right now? (self-kindness)

And I realised that what I needed in that moment was to understand that it didn’t matter what circus was going on out the front of the practice. When I was in the consulting room with each patient, I had my allotted time to spend with them, the door was closed, and I could just do my thing. The manager had absolutely no impact on what I did in the consulting room.

And you know what?

The other thing that happened was that I was able to wish the manager well and hope that things would improve for her as I could see how much she was struggling. I was then able to get on with my day, be present with my patients and enjoy myself.

Yep. You couldn’t make this stuff up…….

Was my version of self-compassion all warm and fuzzy like you might expect it to be? No!!

Was my version of self-compassion a little bit sweary because sometimes I do swear in my head (even though I would never swear out loud when I’m in with a patient)? Yes!!

Do I care that my version of mindful self-compassion wasn’t all “nice” and “pretty” like the lotus flowers on all the mindfulness websites and brochures? No!! It was really effective!!

Hurdles to mindful self-compassion

One of the biggest hurdles I faced in developing self-compassion was in thinking that I was being asked to lower my standards. Interestingly, I have found that there is a paradox here. When I was in my old perfectionistic habits, I would only raise the bar to a certain height because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle my emotions if I failed to reach my goal. I thought that I was a legend because I could do all of this stuff really well….. the only problem was, that all of that stuff I was doing was within my comfort zone, which was very, very small.

So then enter self-compassion. Because now when I fail to reach a goal I say to myself something along the lines of “you tried, sometimes when us humans are doing something new, we fail, and that’s just what happens because we’re human…. what do I need right this very second in order to be okay with this?” I can repeat this process many more times and get further in raising the bar than I would have been able to in the same time frame if I had gone back to my old perfectionistic ways and beating myself up for any failure that occurred.

My confusion around self-esteem and self-compassion was a definite hurdle. The thing is, self-esteem is all about comparison with others. If you have self-compassion, you don’t really care about self-esteem as you don’t need to compare yourself with others. So this is the part where my inner perfectionist (they call it the inner critic in mindful self-compassion) kicked in and started freaking out. It said “are you f*#cking serious, give compassion to yourself when you stuff up? You will become a lazy slob and your standards will drop.”

If you’re interested in starting your journey into mindful self-compassion and want a deeper understanding of self-esteem vs self-compassion, watch the video here by Kristin Neff:

Another personal hurdle that came up was that I got caught up in the “backdraft” of self-compassion during the process of cultivating it. In this definition of backdraft that was given in the 4 day mindful self-compassion course I went to in December 2016, it talked about backdraft being “discomfort that may arise”. In my case it was more like heartache to a gut-wrenching level to the point where I was in agony. I think they call that psychological distress (which is why you might need to consider seeing a psychologist to guide you through that process if you have experienced some previous traumas that might be dredged back up).

So, um, yeah. I think what tends to happen is that when people talk about mindfulness and meditation and mindful-self compassion, there is this connotation that it’s all going to be sunshine and lollipops, and so they think they’re “doing it wrong” when all sorts of other stuff comes up.

Freaking awesome – practice with mindful self-compassion

I will never forget the day I could honestly say that I was the practitioner I had always pretended to be. The thing is, when you have the ability to be in the middle of a s*#t storm that is happening, as so often does when you’re a health practitioner, and you can just get on with “doing your thing” it really does transform the way you practice.
Am I saying I’m in this space all day every day?

No! Of course not, but I’m getting better at noticing when I’m not and being able to come back to seeing what I need at any given point in time.

Am I saying that I have everything under control?

Absolutely not!! I can’t control things like the Optos not booting up in the morning, patients being particularly demanding or working in practices where my co-workers and I don’t really gel.

But I do have the ability now to realise that there will always be things that won’t be in my control, and that what I can do is be mindful of that and give myself whatever it is that I need in that moment.

And that has completely transformed my practice.

What’s next

Right now I’m excitedly watching the posts from the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion’s Facebook page because Kristin Neff is developing a new mindful self-compassion program for health care providers. I would love to be involved in bringing this to Australia when it’s available. Please email enquiries@myhealthcareer.com.au if you are interested in getting on board with that!

Amanda Griffiths is the founder of My Health Career. Since starting the website she has been an invited speaker for organisations including the Career Development Association of Australia and Career Education Association of Victoria, myfuture, and the Master of Ceremonies at the HealthFusion Team Challenge. She graduated from her optometry degree with first class honours in 2003, and spent two years as a part-time clinical supervisor of optometry students in a university setting. Amanda has worked as an optometrist in full time, part time and locum roles that have stretched from far north Queensland to Tasmania. She is currently doing her first locum stint in Western Australia.

More articles on My Health Career:

• Professionalism in an age of shifting expectations – by Amanda Griffiths
• 2016 – my year in review – by Amanda Griffiths
• Why it’s so easy to think you’re a legend in your own mind – the hidden trap of being a primary health practitioner – by Amanda Griffiths

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