When I found out Toronto experiences four times the amount of suicides compared to homicides, I was shocked. I suspect this is in part because homicides are reported in the news more than suicides. For years, journalists have been told they need to be careful in how they tell their stories about suicide, a major …
Within our hospital walls there rages a nightly war in the Emergency Department. The front-line soldiers (a.k.a. ‘residents’ – medical doctors still in the throes of training) work endlessly through the night to admit patients to hospital and provide care to those in need. On occasion, the combination of consistently overburdened teams and overworked residents …
Last month I had a meeting at the Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus. On my way through the hospital I passed by something called the Omega Laser Stop Smoking Clinic. According to their literature, “laser therapy treatment is a non-invasive method used to balance the energy flow between meridians“, and is reported by them to work …
“Patient-centred care” is on everyone’s lips these days. But, do we all agree what it is and when it has been achieved? And does patient centredness create new ethical dilemmas for patients and providers? The University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB) and Healthy Debate are partnering to explore some of the practical and …
Between 2008 and 2013, the number of Canadians receiving some form of home care grew by 55 per cent, to 1.4 million. And as our population continues to age, more and more Canadians expect that care at home will be a viable option. Since the beginning of many coordinated home care programs in the late …
On a daily basis both in hospitals and in our offices we deploy a dizzying array of medications and technologies designed to extend life. The problem is that most of these interventions have rarely been tested on frail seniors and have a much greater chance of causing them harm than providing benefit. Yet “rescue” care …
Should everyone have access to health care in a language they can understand? This is not a new question. In 2001, Health Canada released a report entitled ‘Language Barriers in Access to Health Care,’ calling for further research, including an exploration of the feasibility and cost of providing interpretation throughout the health care system. Since …
Women who get pregnant without using technology typically have one baby at a time. Women who use technology such as fertility drugs or in vitro Fertilization (IVF) are at increased risk of getting pregnant with twins, triplets or more. While this may seem like good news for women who might not otherwise get pregnant, multiple …
A while ago I finished two weeks working on the palliative care service at St. Michael’s Hospital. As usual it was a moving, stressful, rewarding, frustrating, exhilarating, humbling, human experience. Working clinically provides me with a reality check for the other parts of my professional life which focus mostly on health services research and health …
Entering medical school is like settling in a new country, you have to learn the language, adapt to the culture and figure out how to succeed. As medical students, we study the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis and management of diseases. We learn how to effectively communicate with patients to get their stories and pair these …
Several recent commentaries have suggested that public health practitioners should ‘keep out of politics’. Commentators have suggested that public health should focus on its traditional roots of controlling the spread of infectious diseases, such as Ebola, rather than on social issues, such as poverty reduction. The work of public health should be evidence-informed and focus …
The federal government recently announced the Chief Public Health Officer – the physician at the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada – should no longer set the agency’s own budget, leaving this task to a soon-to-be appointed administrator. While the risks and benefits of this approach continue to be debated, a widely cited …
What you need to know about the federal government’s reversal of the refugee health cuts After significant public opposition and efforts from the health sector, the federal government has finally backtracked on many of their cuts to the refugee health program brought about in 2012. The drastic changes to the Interim Federal Health program cut off …
I’m sure Nero did not actually fiddle while Rome burned, but it makes a nice metaphor for the less-desirable qualities and actions of leaders and communicators during emergencies and crises. In the global/international response to the Ebola virus as it smoldered and then raged in West Africa beginning in the spring of 2014, and the …
Ontario registered nurses have a limited right to refuse unsafe work under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. Still, the question remains: will nurses refuse to care for Ebola patients should we ever be faced with that scenario? As President of the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA), the largest nurses’ union in Canada, I can …
The evidence to support much of children’s healthcare is limited.Ten years ago, randomized controlled trials in adults were increasing ten times faster than pediatric ones. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the trend has changed and the gap in evidence between adult and children’s healthcare continues to widen. Randomized controlled trials are the best ‘fair tests’ we …
Every decade or so, a new or exotic infectious disease boards a flight and lands at a Western hospital, and suddenly ethical questions of risks to health care workers and “duty to treat” are front and centre. In the 1980’s and 90’s it was HIV/AIDS. In 2003 it was SARS. Today it’s Ebola. There is no question the …
In 2012, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) lifted the experimental designation on human egg freezing. At this time, it was careful to indicate that freezing technology should not to be used for elective purposes, particularly as this might give young women false hope. A 2014 fact sheet prepared by the ASRM confirms that “Even in …
As dedicated patient experts we welcome Ontario Premier Wynne’s Mandate Letter to Health Minister Eric Hoskins. We are encouraged that in an interview with the Globe and Mail Minister Hoskins committed himself to “improving the patient experience” and the Mandate letter leads with a priority to “Putting Patients at the Centre”. In our many patient roles, …
Friday, October 3, 2014: A CBC headline read, “Could Ebola vaccine delay be due to an intellectual property spat?” By the next morning a colleague, Richard Gold of McGill, and I had figured out that the “IP” (intellectual property) was in fact a non-story. Whatever was delaying the start of a research trial to test …