Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a serious but rare complication of bisphosphonate and Prolia treatment for osteoporosis. It is diagnosed when maxillary or mandibular bone becomes exposed whilst medicated with bisphosphonates. The bisphosphonates are a group of drugs which are preferentially incorporated into sites of active bone re-modelling where they inhibit hydroxyapatite breakdown, thereby effectively suppressing bone resorption.Just how bisphosphonates cause osteonecrosis is not well underst...

Boundary violations occur when a doctor behaves in an unprofessional and untrustworthy manner by misusing their power in the doctor-patient relationship. This may result in harming the patient in some way. I guess many of us would have transgressed at least one such boundary such as treating family members. The following are examples of boundary violations:Examples of practitioner-patient boundary breaches include Having a personal and/or sexual relationship with a patient (even a former...

Arlie Loughnan and Mike O’Connor* The deliberate killing of a child by its mother is abhorrent and is associated in the minds of many with mental illness and in particular with postnatal depression. However, at least 50% of perpetrators are neither “mad” nor “bad”, and mothers who kill children are not “unhinged” by pregnancy or childbirth. We propose a different explanation: “blind rage” or “overwhelmed syndrome”, whereby par...

One of the papers delivered on 25 Feb 2023 at the ACLM was by Prof Judy Clausen on the recent Nebraska legislation to introduce Advanced Mental Health Care Plans in that State. So called ‘Ulysses directives’ enable psychiatric patients such as bipolar or schizophrenic patients subject to episodic relapses to make advanced decisions regarding what they wish to receive when they are incapacitated by psychotic states. As Ulysses and his men were returning home after the Trojan War, ...

I was recently in Orlando Florida for the 63rd Annual Conference of the American College of Legal Medicine. The Australasian CLM has recently established strong links with the American counterpart and my invitation to talk was based on that nexus. I talked about Infanticide laws in Australia which is something that American jurisdictions lack and hence many women are convicted of first degree murder for killing an infant. Four States in the US (Montana ,Utah, Kansas, and Idaho ) have no pro...