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A vaccine that protects infants from a severe gastroenteritis-causing virus may provide an unexpected bonus; helping to prevent type 1 diabetes. The rotavirus vaccine became a routine immunisation for Australian babies in 2007, and unlike some other countries, it’s had widespread uptake. Now a new Australian study published online in JAMA Pediatrics, may have uncovered an added benefit to the childhood vaccination.

The Junior Doctor Survival Guide is a companion to the new students, interns and residents beginning their journeys as clinicians. Written by residents, for interns and residents, the Junior Doctor Survival Guide is a thorough summary of everything you need to know to get through your internship and residency (relatively) intact.

People who eat higher levels of dietary fibre and whole grains have lower rates of non-communicable diseases according to nearly 40 years of observational studies and clinical trials published in The Lancet. 

Patients could benefit from improved nursing care and outcomes thanks to new guidance that helps draw out meaningful findings from qualitative studies, according to new UK research.

Introducing dedicated expert nurses to proactively monitor patients at increased risk of “clinical deterioration” can help cut intensive care transfers by up to 40%, according to a new US study.

Clinicians need to do more to help people with type 2 diabetes stick to exercise regimes that can help them control blood glucose and improve heart health, according to a group of European experts. A position paper from the European Association of Preventive Cardiology highlights the benefits of physical activity for people with the condition. But the researchers make it clear that simply advising patients with type 2 diabetes to do more exercise is not enough. Instead, clinicians should help formulate tailored exercise plans and do more to motivate and encourage people to keep going, the researchers said.

Reduced staffing and lack of follow-up care could mean the festive season is a more vulnerable time for patients discharged from hospital. Patients sent home from hospital during the Christmas / New Year period are less likely to have a follow-up appointment, and have a higher risk of readmission or death within 30 days, finds a Canadian study published in The BMJ.

Recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy are making a huge difference in treating some forms of cancer, especially metastatic cancer. But breast cancer has proven a tricky foe for this new therapy, and an interdisciplinary team of Florida State University researchers is now a little bit closer to figuring out why.

QIMR Berghofer researchers have created functioning miniature human skeletal muscle – a move that will accelerate research into muscle disease and treatments. The bio-engineered one millimetre by 0.5 millimetre skeletal muscles flex and move like muscles in the body and grow and strengthen with exercise.

Hospitalised patients were more likely to die when registered nurse (RN) staffing levels fell below the ward average, according to a retrospective analysis of data from a large acute care hospital. Each day spent in an RN-understaffed ward over a 3-year period conferred a 3% rise in mortality risk, whereas each additional hour of care provided by an RN was associated with a 3% reduction in the chances of dying, the study found.