Saylah Strnad

Rosedale Heights School of the Arts
3452 Contributions
by Samir C. Grover

Canada promised to watch its doctors train. We never did. AI could change that

In 2017, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada launched Competence by Design, the most consequential reform of Canadian residency training in a generation. The premise was simple: we can define all the elements that a graduating physician should know or do in practice, and we should only graduate them when a supervisor has actually watched them do the work competently and safely. The framework broke training into discrete clinical tasks, such as managing a patient with chest pain, that a trainee must be observed performing before a supervisor signs off. Nearly a decade later, the architecture is in place. The observation is not.
by Tara Kiran

Every jurisdiction in Canada needs a Primary Care Act

Just over a year ago, the government of Ontario passed landmark legislation that puts primary care – the care most often delivered by family doctors – at the foundation of the health-care system.
by Michelle Cohen

Cancer pseudoscience and the cultural moment

The word “cancer” strikes a particular kind of fear in people’s hearts and creates a thriving market for cancer scams. If you search “cancer treatments” on Facebook (one of the first prompts that appear if you type “cancer” into the search bar), you’re immediately fed videos on alternative therapies and recommended groups discussing “natural” versus conventional cancer care.
by Kelly Cobey

It’s time to get mad about your health data

When my mom moved across the province to be closer to her grandkids (and I like to think, me), she faced a challenge many Canadians know all too well: finding a family doctor. But once she did, she faced another problem. It turned out that some of her medical history hadn’t made the trip with her.
by Maddie O’Connor

If diet is a key to health, why aren’t we focusing on nutrition in medical schools?

“Why am I not being taught this?” It’s a question Amardeep Mangat says medical learners frequently ask after rotating through his Lifestyle Medicine clinic, where they witness patients improving their chronic disease management through nutrition, exercise, sleep optimization and behavioural interventions – and sometimes deprescribing medications altogether.
by Jennifer Diamond

At a breaking point: Workforce sustainability in home and community care needs smarter HR

The workforce pressure on our increasingly strained health-care system is not a Human Resources (HR) problem; it’s a human problem that affects every single person in the chain of care, from physicians and Personal Support Workers to the administrative teams who hold it all together.
by Patricia Trbovich Rolf Gronas

You can’t have patient safety without good system design

In modern health care, we still behave as though safety is primarily a function of individual vigilance. When something goes wrong, health-care providers will instinctively ask “what could I have done differently?” instead of addressing a more uncomfortable question “how did our systems make this mistake more likely?” This is understandable as many enter the health-care profession firmly grounded in the principle of “first, do no harm.”
by Nkechi Ikeaba

Addiction is not a moral failure: Why harm reduction matters

During a rural posting in West Africa, I once saw people at a religious centre locked up, chained to poles and subjected to harsh conditions because they were “addicted to drugs,” brought by their family members who believed they were “demon possessed” or needed “spiritual deliverance.” I remember being shocked and moved to tears at these attempts to detoxify or rehabilitate – but without evidence-based care, compassion, dignity or an understanding of the illness itself.
by Tess Lanzarotta

Canada must take the lead on hepatitis C vaccine research

Hepatitis C kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year; in Canada it results in more lost years of life than any other infectious disease. An effective treatment exists, but it is unavailable to many because of cost and other access obstacles. And there is no vaccine. Canada has the researchers, the policy framework and the capacity to help change that.
by Danyaal Raza Sheryl Spithoff

If AI scribes were the test run, Supply Ontario has lessons to learn

In May, Ontario’s Auditor General released a special report on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Ontario government, including medical “AI scribes” that are increasingly being used by doctors, including us. While headlines and coverage focused mainly on so-called scribe hallucinations of these AI note-taking systems, that wasn’t the biggest news in the report.
by Tara Moroz

‘Authentic’ health advice isn’t the same as evidence-based

Scrolling through social media, it’s easy to feel like health advice is everywhere. A creator shares a routine that “changed everything.” Another explains how they fixed their gut health. A clinician posts quick tips between patient visits. The tone is confident, personal – and above all, authentic.
by Margaret Hess Naomi Berlyne

Low-income seniors losing out on government pensions

Many low-income seniors are standing on the edge of a financial precipice. As family physicians and health promoters at St. Michael’s Family Health Team, we do everything we can to support our patients through these challenges. But for every person we help, thousands of others fall through the cracks with no one to catch them.
by Fallan Curtis

Keep the doors open: What can Alberta’s addiction policy learn from youth care

Alberta does not have to choose between recovery and harm reduction. A serious recovery-oriented system would protect both, investing in treatment beds and recovery communities, but also in the low-barrier services that keep people alive long enough to use them.
by Mohamed Elsayed Elghobashy Kanish Baskaran Edwin Wong

The cost of neurophobia in Canadian medical training

We have mapped the stars, descended into the ocean depths, yet the human brain remains one of the greatest mysteries humans have encountered.

by Amal Khan

Disconnected by design: How fragmented health data is failing Canadian patients

Patients living in Canadian rural and remote communities often move across multiple systems simply to access basic care. Bill S-5 represents an important first step toward addressing a problem.

by Kathy Kortes-Miller

The illusion of choice in Ontario’s long-term care system

We cannot build a humane health-care system by forcing families to choose between unaffordable charges and unsafe or unsuitable care. That is not choice. That is pressure disguised as policy.
by Maisha Adil

Canada lost its measles-free status. Our children deserve better

Canada can regain its measles elimination status, but only after we interrupt transmission for a full year. That requires hitting the 95 per cent herd immunity threshold.
by Lana Cho

The healing reach of art: Creative insights from participants and practitioners

If we are serious about improving health outcomes, particularly for populations navigating systemic barriers, creative expression should not be treated as an add-on. It should be recognized as a practical, accessible component of care.
by Natalie Fung Saad Ahmed Kar Yin Michelle Au Ripudaman Singh Minhas

Young people aren’t avoiding conversations about sexual health – they’re avoiding judgment

Youth are already talking about sexual health online every day. The question is whether trusted institutions are willing to meet them there – not with judgment, but with honesty, empathy and respect. 
by Maha Kamil

Children left waiting: The need to update emergency department triage

Long emergency wait times are now widely recognized as a structural problem. But children should not deteriorate unnoticed in emergency department waiting areas.

1 of 173