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Abstract: Aim: This paper reports on the findings from 6 focus groups conducted with Australian medical students. The focus groups sought students' perspectives on how the influence of commercial interests on medical practice and education could be managed. Method: We conducted 6 focus groups with medical students in New South Wales, Australia. Participants were recruited via student‐run medical society and faculty e‐mail lists. Forty‐nine students from 6 medical schools in New South Wales participated. The research team reflected on the extent to which students uncritically appealed to science in the abstract as a management solution for conflicts of interest. Data analysis was largely inductive, looking for uses of scientific terminology, EBM, and appeals to “science” in the management of COI and applied theoretical analyses of scientism. Results: The students in our study suggested that science and evidence‐based medicine, rather than ethics or professionalism, were the best tools to deal with undue influence and bias. This paper uses philosophy of science literature to critically examine these scientistic appeals to science and EBM as a means of managing the influence of pharmaceutical reps and commercial interests. We argue that a scientistic style of reasoning is reinforced through medical curricula and that students need to be made aware of the epistemological assumptions that underpin science, medicine, and EBM to address the ethical challenges associated with commercialised health care. Conclusion: More work is needed to structure medical curricula to reflect the complexities of practice and realities of science. However, curricula change alone will not sufficiently address issues associated with commercial interests in medicine. For real change to occur, there needs to be a broader social and professional debate about the ways in which medicine and industry interact, and structural changes that restrict or mitigate commercial influences in educational, research, and policy settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no literature to guide mental health nursing in bushfire‐affected communities. Using autoethnographic methods, the author reflects on his experience of mental health nursing during the Australian bushfires of 2019–20 and the challenges of identifying existing practice guidance. Applying an existing nursing model and insights from gestalt, he analyses his field notes to identify and describe practices which he found important and useful for working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. Eight suggestions are provided to assist mental health nurses to practise in an informed way and promote recovery. This paper makes a contribution to a small body of existing mental health nursing research using autoethnographic methods, and it is the first contribution to the mental health nursing literature about working with bushfire‐affected persons and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To review and synthesise research related to the ageing farming workforce influence on the health and sustainability of agricultural communities. Design: Using the PRISMA framework as a guide, the CINHAL and Medline databases were searched. Search 1 used the key search terms of ageing OR aging, farm*, workforce. Search 2 used health, sustainability and 'agricultural OR farm communit*. Search 3 combined Searches 1 and 2. Search 4 followed journal citations to identify other relevant articles. A process of narrative synthesis was applied to the results through the prism of rural social capital that described the current state of knowledge and understanding under four themes. Result: Database searches and searching of citations identified 16 contemporary articles. Seven of the papers were from Australia, and the balance from five other high‐income countries. The four that themes emerged are: vulnerabilities of ageing farmers; economic and climatic drivers; social capital and sustainability; and integrative strategies, that might offer a way forward. Conclusion: Integrating these forces of nature, economics and sociology to address the ageing farming workforce and the associated health and sustainability of agricultural communities remains a major challenge for researchers, governments, the agricultural sector and rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of reflexive sociology it is commonplace that subjectivity is of great sociological concern, and that the comprehension by social researchers of their own subject position is essential. Still, old habits die hard. Focusing on selected texts in the sociology of the Australian family, this paper traces the effects of failing to focus the sociological gaze on subjectivity and its variation across society. Highlighted are some patterns of analytic misconstruction of subjectivity, especially the substitution of measurement for a theory of practice, and the projection by sociologists of their own class-specific subjectivity onto society at large. Ultimately, this misconstruction turns works like those discussed in this paper into a powerful denial of alternative subjectivities, and a reinforcement of the socially dominant perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses several debates surrounding the reproduction of socio-economic inequality: (i) the persistent inequality thesis, which maintains that despite the increases in educational participation socio-economic inequalities in education have not declined; (ii) the related thesis of maximally maintained inequality, which proposes that socio-economic inequalities decline only when participation levels for the most privileged socio-economic group approach saturation levels; (iii) the meritocracy debate on the importance of ability vis-à-vis socio-economic background and changes in its influence over time; and (iv) the effect of policy changes on socio-economic inequalities in education. These issues are addressed using data from six Australian youth cohorts born between 1961 and the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]