‘That’s nuts, right?’ Burnout rates raise concerns among ER doctors
doctors
Shut out of clinical trials, community hospitals miss out on ‘cutting-edge therapy’
Taking action on physician wellbeing
Medical conferences must face virtual reality
Family physicians need to be protected in a pandemic
Stigma drives mental health of healthcare workers into the shadows
Patient care at risk as Alberta refuses binding arbitration with its doctors
What’s in a name – defining hospitalists in Canada
Over the past two decades, delivery of inpatient care at acute care institutions has changed dramatically in Canada, with fewer family doctors following their patients in hospitals and the emergence of a growing number of hospitalists. Despite this growth, there is no uniform understanding of who hospitalists are, what they do and what types of …
It’s not just about you – screw the flu!
The Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) recently won an arbitration against Sault Area Hospital striking down their ‘vaccinate-or-mask’ policy. The arbitrator Jim Hayes found the policy was unreasonable, and a “coercive” tool to force heath-care workers to get a flu shot. While this decision is only binding to Sault Area Hospital, many hospitals across Ontario will …
More Ontarians should have access to team-based primary care
In our family medicine practice, we regularly ask patients to give us feedback on how we’re doing. They tell us, over and over, that one of the things they like best about our practice is the teamwork – how much they love their doctor but also their social worker, or nurse, or dietitian. And how …
Is a large cut to methadone-providing doctors justified or putting patients at risk?
Doctors who solely provide methadone therapy to treat addiction to narcotics say they’re facing reductions of around 25% to their income, as a result of cuts to the fees for urine tests announced this month by the Ministry of Health. Some addictions doctors and public health experts across the province are sounding alarm that this cut could …
Physicians and hospitals can work together for a patients-first system
When patients enter a typical hospital, they sense that their needs don’t come first. Nobody seems to listen to them. Nobody seems to care how long they have to wait, or what will happen to them once they are transferred to another service. At times, members of the care team seem to work at cross-purposes. …
Kieran
The role of call scheduling in resident burnout
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 …
Many hospitals don’t do enough to support health workers after an adverse event
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 …
Gupta in Nepal: a physician-reporter pushing past the ethical limits
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 …
Culture of bullying: what can medicine learn from the Ghomeshi report?
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 …
Modernizing scopes of practice to improve the value of physician services
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 …
Hospitals must do more to help late-career docs transition to retirement
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 …
Should doctors be charging disadvantaged patients for sick notes?
Can’t you do something, Judge? This was the question I was asked in Drug Treatment Court last week. Unfortunately, my answer was “I tried. But I can’t seem to get these doctors to change!” The issue was doctors charging their patients for one line notes stating they had been ill and had been seen in …