The Tropical Health Orientation Manual for health practitioners in Northern Australia (2020) (THOM) was published in partnership by Centre for Remote Health, PHN Northern Territory and HotNorth. The manual provides an introductory overview of clinically important conditions prevalent in tropical Australia. It was developed by health professionals with expertise and passion for their topics who collaborated to share their knowledge.
Health practitioners unfamiliar with tropical diseases and new to rural and remote communities need to be prepared for practice in Northern Australia. This preparation includes building knowledge of important tropical health conditions which impact on the high burden of disease in northern Australia. THOM is intended to provide background information about these conditions and is not a source of detailed guidelines for individual patient management.
Each entry stands alone, and most are presented with the following format:
- Disease in Northern Australia — a summary of the epidemiology and local relevance of each condition
- Aetiology and pathogenesis — presented briefly
- Clinical picture — highlights important symptoms, signs and investigations
- Differential diagnosis — particularly highlights related conditions that are locally relevant
- Principles of management — summarises approaches to management. Detailed treatment protocols are not reproduced unless there is no alternative and easily accessible source of information
- Further information — lists sources of telephone advice, management guidelines (such as the CARPA Standard Treatment Manual), educational resources and further reading.
In addition to the disease summaries several clinical case scenarios are presented. These highlight approaches to some common presentations in more detail. Some treatment information is included in the case studies as examples of current practice. However, approaches and treatment recommendations are constantly changing, and up-to-date references should always be used for management decisions about individual patients.
