Nepal is a disaster zone. Katmundu hospital is overflowing. Sanjay Gupta is on the scene, showing and telling CNN audiences the scope of the tragedy with the expert eyes of a physician and the skills of a reporter but then, what’s this? Dr Gupta is asked to operate and there he is performing emergency surgery …
Mental health leaders have the opportunity for courageous change as they assemble in Toronto this week. Psychiatrists from around the world will be attending the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting, and I hope that there will be serious and thought provoking conversation on the future of the specialty. As a neurologist, new to the mental …
So-called “high-cost users” of health care – the 5% of the population who use nearly two-thirds of health care resources – have become a major policy focus, both in Canada and abroad. But in the rush to save money on the care of patients who are already high-cost users, too little attention has been paid …
On the average commute home from work, it’s easy to observe people regularly carry out any number of “at-risk” behaviors on the roads: not following traffic signals, texting while driving, or driving at excessive speeds. When it comes to driving, it seems Canadians have a very high risk tolerance. This is certainly understandable in a …
When people learn that I pivoted from broadcast journalism to health care, they are rightly surprised: the two fields don’t seem to have a lot in common. But in my experience, they share at least this: both occasionally celebrate a culture of blame, celebrity and an eat-your-young mentality that fosters fear, undermines team work and …
The best thing about being a doctor and practicing Medicine are the stories – the patient’s stories. Each day, I get to hear someone’s life story, to share in their life’s successes, their failures, and the meaning they derive from their experiences. I have heard of the adventures and the atrocities of The Great Wars, …
In 1987, a high-profile and unpopular doctors’ strike over reimbursement shook the profession, leading to the creation of CanMEDS roles framework studied by every Canadian medical student. 18 years later, income is again the focal point in the latest negotiations between the Ontario Medical Association and the provincial government. As former Chief Justice Warren Winkler …
Like most doctors, I can remember the first time one of my patients walked into my office with a stack of printed papers in her hands and a long list of questions—all derived from the newly emerging world of the Internet. Managing these types of interactions could feel daunting and even a little threatening but …
Recently, Access Alliance, a community health centre in Toronto, posed an interesting challenge to fellow health care, education, child care and social service organizations: get rid of precarious jobs in the public sector. It makes sense. An important part of the public sector’s role is to build a healthy society. Precarious jobs – temporary, part-time, …
Among Ontario adults, 14.1 percent used cannabis during 2013, according to a recent report from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In 1997, the equivalent figure was only 9.1 percent. Researchers at CAMH say that the steady increase in cannabis use underscores the need for a public health—rather than a criminal justice—approach to …
This year’s flu season has been particularly nasty. In primary care, this has meant months of waiting rooms teeming with influenza and an array of different viruses. However, relatively few of these patients actually benefit from further assessment and treatment. In many cases, it’s not patients’ health concerns driving them in, but an archaic approach …
Imagine doing your job in fear. For many healthcare professionals, this is the reality they face every day. It is no secret; workplace violence is a leading form of occupational injury and results in reduced job satisfaction and fear to perform necessary duties within healthcare. For far too long, violence against healthcare workers has occurred …
In an earlier article, we discussed the importance of post-patent competition in generating social value from the pharmaceutical market. Generic competition gives people access to less expensive drugs and allows society to recapture value from patent holders. This topic is currently relevant because numerous major biopharmaceutical patents, including Remicade, Humira, and Lucentis, are set to …
In 2003, the sequence of the human genome – our genetic code – was revealed. For the first time, we now had a complete list of human genes (about 20,000), and could realistically start to address what these genes did, how they make us human, how the body works and what happens when things go …
Forty is the new thirty. Orange is the new black. And failure is the new success. It seems these days that no success story is complete without a failure (or two) along the way: the bankruptcy that gave birth to a successful company; the entrepreneur who lost it all just before hitting the Fortune 500. …
Unemployed youth is a worldwide problem. This problem is creeping into medicine and affecting our new doctors too. In recent years, there have been discussions about the lack of physicians in Canada. Much of this has been based on anecdotal and reported evidence of unmet health care needs of Canadians including long waiting lists and …
Five years ago, President Obama began the largest regulatory overhaul of US healthcare since Nixon, expanding coverage and radically redefining how coverage is purchased. In his 2015 State of the Union, Obama delivered a different kind of disruption, announcing the creation of a Precision Medicine Initiative, a $215 million genetic database that will make it …
Pharmaceutical innovations are the ultimate public good. They are ideas that make it possible for society to address otherwise unmet health care needs. As ideas, however, they are also hard to find and easy to copy. As such, fostering valued, pharmaceutical innovation is a policy paradox. In a truly “free market,” no firm would have …
“We have created an [engagement] industry that is self-serving, one that produces minimal or unsurprising output, by co-opting people into, and taming data to fit, institutional structures. We can shift the structures as much as we like, but it won’t change anything unless we find a new way of doing things…” So wrote David Gilbert …
Staff satisfaction surveys are a vital tool when trying to improve employee engagement. The connection between workplace health and quality patient outcomes is well documented. Yet, according to National Research Corporation Canada (NRCC), only two Ontario hospitals using their tool survey more frequently than once every year or two. Can an organization effectively focus on …