“Luring Overseas Trained Doctors to Australia: Issues of Training,Regulating and Trading”

Australia is at a crossroads. Its long history of relying on overseas trained medical practitioners and the last decade’s changes, in terms of the introduction of policies to recruit large numbers of temporary doctors, both require examination. Not only is Australia alone in its overt policy initiatives but it also fails to be aware of the consequences for some sending countries. Australia has not entered into the spirit of international attempts to ameliorate the potential effects of developing‐to‐developed country medical migration and trade. This paper will provide an overview of the current international situation regarding supply and demand, major ethical issues, Australia’s immigration policies and regulatory framework and the situation with respect to the labour market integration of overseas trained doctors (OTDs). It will be argued that Australia ‘lures’ with little concern for the consequences for source countries.     

The myth of transit: the making of a life by asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia

An increasing number of migrants are living in a state of indefinite ‘transit’. In this paper, we report on interviews conducted in 2009 with 59 refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia and describe how these individuals make a life despite their circumstances. While all participants were deeply affected by their position of uncertainty and insecurity, most sought to transcend these conditions and pursue significant life projects such as getting married, having children, becoming part of the local community, and working towards a better future. The current conceptualisation of transit as life in limbo does not wholly account for such permanent, life-changing experiences. We analyse the reasons why the use of the term ‘transit’ persists in international policy settings despite its incongruities, arguing that its ongoing political valence overrides its conceptual flaws.     

Evaluation and Implementation of a Telepsychiatry Trial in the Emergency Department of a Metropolitan Public Hospital

Telepsychiatry via video conferencing is not new to mental health but has been expanding at a rapid rate over recent years. Initially it was introduced for treatment in remote and rural communities, but it is now being utilized in larger health settings due to increasing patient demand and cost-effectiveness. Emergency departments are becoming increasingly burdened, as the workforce cannot keep pace with the rising demand of patient mental health needs. While telepsychiatry has been shown to have treatment efficacy, research is still relatively new, especially within the emergency department context.     

An account of significant events influencing Australian breastfeeding practice over the last 40 years

Background

Low breastfeeding duration rates reflect the pain and distress experienced by many women who discontinue breastfeeding in the early weeks and months of life. This paper explores modern key historical events that have significantly influenced Australian breastfeeding education and practice.

Method

Relevant literature reviewed from 1970 to 2010 identified key events that appear to have contributed to the decrease in Australian breastfeeding rates and the increase in women experiencing breastfeeding complications, particularly nipple pain and trauma.

Findings and discussion

The rise in institutionalisation and medical intervention in labour and birth has also medicalised midwifery practice. Technocratic intrusion and institutionalised care is contributing to the separation of the mother and newborn at birth. Delayed mother–baby initiation of breastfeeding and interruption of the duration of the first, and subsequent breastfeeds, negatively affects the innate ability of the mother and newborn to establish and sustain breastfeeding. The ‘pathologising’ of breastfeeding that involve midwives teaching women complicated and unnatural breastfeeding techniques interfere with instinctive sensory and mammalian behaviours and further contributes to the high complication rates.

Conclusion

Midwives are encouraged to reflect on their role as ‘experts’ in the breastfeeding process and give confidence to women so that they utilise their instinctive ability to breastfeed by self-determined techniques that encourage mammalian skills for newborn sustenance and survival.     

Accounting for the contribution of vitamin B to Canada's WWII effort

Canada began to fortify its flour and bread with vitamin B when it entered the Second World War. The decision was informed by the biology of vitamin B and therefore I suggest that the complexity of this political maneuver can best be understood by considering the specificity of the biochemistry of vitamin B. In this paper I will show that the specific biology of vitamin B allowed the Canadian government the possibility of a healthier population under wartime conditions but also allowed the government a variety of means by which to develop and organize food processing practices to this end.     

Doing cultural work: Local postcard production and place identity in a rural shire

Studies of place construction in the rural studies literature have largely privileged the role of professionals over that of local lay actors. This paper contributes to redressing this imbalance through a critical case-study of lay postcard production in a rural shire. Drawing on original, qualitative research conducted in the Shire of Ravensthorpe, Western Australia, including in-depth interviews with key participants, the analysis focuses on this lay production—undertaken in the main by women—as cultural work. By emphasising the work of making the postcards along with the cultural work these postcards achieve, this examination foregrounds intersections of material and imagined ruralities. In the process, this study highlights the complexity and importance of this lay contribution to place identity, particularly as positioned within what may be considered rural cultural work.     

Evaluation of the aquatic habitat and fish assemblage in an urban reach of the historic Rideau Canal,Ottawa, Canada: Implications for management in an engineered system

The historic Rideau Canal (built in the 1800s) in eastern Ontario, Canada is a heavily managed and engineered ecosystem, popular for recreational boating and sport fishing in the summer and ice skating in the winter. However, little is actually know about the fish and aquatic macrophyte communities, particularly in the urban reach in Ottawa between Hartwell’s Lock and the outflow of Dows Lake. The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which fish and macrophytes varied among different natural and engineered habitat/substrate types across the period when the canal is at navigational water levels. Five gross habitat types were identified, consisting of gravel, silt/sand, rip-rap/gabion basket, boulder and concrete wall habitats. Replicate transects were established in the littoral zone, representing the different habitat types. Snorkel surveys were conducted on a biweekly basis, where fish species and aquatic macrophytes within the transects were quantified. Supplementary data on fish populations was obtained through seine net sampling as well as angler interviews and visual observations. The fish community was characterized as a reasonably simple warmwater assemblage, dominated by centrarchids (e.g., pumpkinseed [Lepomis gibbosus], bluegill [L. macrochirus], and largemouth bass [Micropterus salmoides]). In fact, more than 90% of all fish encountered (snorkel surveys and seine netting) belonged to the centrarchid family. None of the 17 fish species encountered in the reach were considered “at risk” in Canada, although the system supports one of the few urban muskellunge (Esox masquinongy) populations in the world and provides a range of urban recreational fishing opportunities for sportsfish. Fish diversity metrics (e.g., diversity, richness, evenness) varied little among habitat types, perhaps reflecting the fact that vegetation communities were reasonably homogeneous, largely dominated by the exotic Eurasian water milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum). This research provides managers with the first detailed information on the aquatic ecology in this engineered urban ecosystem which will enable relevant government agencies (e.g., Parks Canada) to better balance the iconic cultural values of national significance with their mandate to protect the ecological integrity of the canal ecosystem.     

Tolerance Within Community: Does Social Capital Affect Tolerance?

Credit cooperatives are financial intermediaries that pay attention to social criteria. Thus, if such entities want to survive and thrive in the new international context, they cannot ignore their inefficiencies in both the financial and social dimensions of their activity. However, previous research on efficiency in credit cooperatives is very limited and only considers their financial activity. To date, no study has been published giving evidence through indicators on whether these banking institutions are socially efficient. This paper therefore constructs a social efficiency index of Spanish credit cooperatives during the period 2008–2014 and examines its main explanatory factors. After applying a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the results from the first stage indicate that, on average, the social efficiency of Spanish credit cooperatives reaches an acceptable level of 66.42 %. Second-stage truncated regression reveals that entities with a greater proportion of branches in urban areas are socially less efficient, whereas both their size and the number of service points have a positive effect. Interestingly, social efficiency also varies significantly depending on the regional location of credit cooperatives in Spain. As a result, our findings enable these Social Economy financial institutions to both know their performance relative to their social activity and use this information to improve their competitiveness in the future.     

The effect of political generation on identity and social change: Age cohort consequences

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explore how political generation affects the ways in which diverse individuals come together and change their social and personal identities. Drawing on 52 in-depth interviews with members of the Red Hat Society, we show that women draw on their political generation, and the gains of the women’s movement specifically, to oppose cultural constructions of aging. The Red Hat Society provides a “free space” for women to foster a collective identity that both visibly challenges aging norms and provides its members new standards for self-approval. We conclude by highlighting the importance of focusing on political generation to understand collective action over the life course and call for more scholarship on the function of political generation in social change.     

Book Review

Homophobia: An Australian History Shirleene Robinson (ed), The Federation Press, Sydney, 2008, pb, x + 262 pp., $35.00