We know that fracture is quite common in the community. We also know that fracture increases the risk of death. Our latest work suggests that multimorbidity can explain why patients with a fracture have higher risk of death. A few years ago my 70-year old neighbour broke his hip after…

I am incredibly honored and humbled to be appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). It came with a total surprise. But it also came at a very special time to me, because 40 years ago on this day (26/1/1982) I came to Australia as a ‘boat…

In a previous blog, I discussed the implication of communicating mortality risk to patients with a fracture. In this article, we put forward the new concept of “skeletal age” to quantify the impact of fracture on mortality. It is easy to determine the chronological age of an individual. The number…

People like me who work in clinical research are no strangers to noise because we deal with this issue almost daily. However, I still very much enjoy reading “Noise — a flaw in human judgment” [1] by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein [2]. This book is a re-examination…

That is what our Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, and I totally agree with his view. It is time to think of an exit strategy from lockdown. Last weekend, there were mass protests on anti-lockdown across Australia. Although I don’t condone the aggressive behavior of some protesters, I do think…

With Steve, I have a lot of memories that go back 30 years. In the early 1990s, when I joined Professor John Eisman’s group working in the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, John showed me a list of work that I should read, and Steve’s papers were on the top of…

Covid vaccination is a controversial topic that I don’t want to venture into. Here, I would like to argue that when you decide to have a jab, it means that you do a community service. Many Australians (perhaps up to 30%) are reluctant to take a jab for Covid-19 [1]…

Sydney has entered another phase of lockdown, and we are repeatedly told by our political leaders and health authorities that their decisions were guided by science. They even assure us that lockdowns work. Well, I beg to differ. I must admit that I have been increasingly uncomfortable with the ongoing…

A friend of mine is hesitant to take an AstraZeneca (AZ) jab, because he believes that the vaccine is less effective and has higher risk of blood clot than Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine. He is not alone, many Australians, including the educated ones, hold the same view. I beg to differ…