Early Bird Registration at Russell Conference
Four weeks to go until early bird registration ends for the annual Northland Faculty RNZCGP conference Medical Clap in Russell: The urgent and contagious. Register now!
A guest speaker is John Kennelly. John is a senior lecturer in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland and a GP for a Pacific Health Trust. One of John's interests is the management of soft tissue infections. His talk is titled 'Mr T' needs you. The challenge of reducing soft tissue infections in our community
New Zealand has the highest incidence of Staphylococcus aureus disease among developed countries with the highest rates in Maori and PI people. Most disease is due to methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA). There has been a steady and significant increase in S. aureus infections over the past few years predominantly due to a rise in non-invasive community-associated MSSA. The result of this large pool of soft tissue skin infections (STSI) is the unacceptable rate of osteomyelitis and septic arthritis in Maori and PI children. The presentation will discuss a GP approach to this public health disaster. The presentation is in two parts: 1. a recent case from his practice in West Auckland ('Mr T') demonstrates the difficulty of early recognition of dangerous STSI complications and a useful clinical prediction rule 2. a brief description of a proposed general practice/public health approach to controlling the spread of S aureus in our community.