Today my son Hunter is 821 days old (2 years, 3 months, 0 days). As a resident, I have spent 129 of those days in the hospital while on call; after-hours care that are over and above my ‘regular’ working day (0 years, 4 months, 3 days). In other words, I have missed 15% of …
It’s still far from routine, but telemedicine is quietly growing across Canada. Last year, a pilot project with a portable robot was launched in Saskatchewan. And telemedicine programs in Ontario have been growing by around 30% per year for the last several years, according to David Jensen, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. Telemedicine can …
On February 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled to strike down the provisions of the Criminal Code that prohibit Physician Assisted Death (PAD, which includes both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia). Although public support for PAD in Canada has been very high for decades, support among the medical community has been lukewarm at …
Is our health system’s definition of palliative care correct? The World Health Organization (WHO) describes palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness.” Keeping this in mind, most of us associate palliative care with comfort-focused care that is delivered within …
The boy stopped breathing. That morning, he had been admitted with what seemed like a seizure to the emergency room at IWK Health Centre in Halifax. He had been given drugs to stop the seizure. Katrina Hurley, an emergency doctor just starting her night shift and taking over the case, thought the boy was over-sedated …
When she pictured her birth, Meghan Ward wanted a support person who would be with her from start to finish. Her first choice was a midwife, but there wasn’t a midwife in the Bow Valley, Alberta region where she lives. As a compromise, she found an obstetrician for her maternity care and started looking into …
David Sackett, the most important mentor of my professional career, died last month. I am writing this article partly to acknowledge and thank him for his incredible contributions to medicine, critical thinking and evidence-based medicine. However, others such as Andre Picard have already done so beautifully. I am writing this partly because I fear that …
When prescribed appropriately – to treat psychosis related to a psychiatric condition like schizophrenia – antipsychotic medications can improve a patient’s quality of life. However, too often it appears antipsychotics are being prescribed to residents of Long-Term Care Homes (LTCH) to control behavioral symptoms of dementia (such as verbal or physical aggression) without a concurrent …