The doctor’s white lab coat has a long-standing tradition. Some medical schools have created the ‘white coat ceremony’ to welcome new students into the profession. I think it’s time we got rid of these coats. I used to wear one. When I started clinical work I was proud of mine because it made me feel …
Although medical schools have been around since the 18th century in North America, the way that medical students are taught continues to evolve. Technology is a valuable resource for almost any discipline, and in medicine, it is a resource that has helped to both facilitate and enhance the learning experience. It is then no surprise …
As part of the 2003 Health Accord, the Federal Government made major investments in interprofessional education. This included contributing $28 million dollars to build training centres across Canadian colleges and universities. Investing in interprofessional education was motivated by the belief that changing the way health care professionals work together would be a key part of …
If you’re a medical intern (a new doctor in their first year of additional training after medical school), most of what you need to do your job can be pulled off a computer screen: Blood test results. Paged messages. Orders to start a medication. All but, of course, how sick a patient is. How he …
Approximately 1 in 10 Canadians describe symptoms consistent with alcohol or illicit drug dependence. Yet, the undergraduate medical education system devotes a total of 12 hours of curricular time to addiction medicine, not a proportionate response to the severity of the problem. Addictions place a serious burden on the healthcare system, costing Canadians an estimated …
A drug company sales representative stands in front of a class of University of Toronto medical students and delivers her well-rehearsed sales pitch about the benefits of her company’s birth control pill. Hold on: Isn’t this sort of interaction between the pharmaceutical industry and med students supposed to be forbidden because of concerns about conflicts …
After finishing medical school, new doctors go through several years of post-graduate, on-the-job training – known as residency – in order to become licensed to practice independently. Historically, residency has involved very long hours spent in hospital, so that residents see a high volume of diverse cases as well as provide patient care. As part …
Residents are an essential part of Canada’s 24/7 health system. They are in a unique position, serving as both care givers and physicians-in-training, and they have traditionally worked very long hours. This has led to tremendous national and international debate regarding the regulation of resident work hours. The European Union now limits residents to 52.5 …
Summertime for many university students, reeling from aftermaths of their exams, may mean relaxing on the beach with friends. However, for many eager and forward-looking students, it is an opportunity to gain experience: international experience. Today, one can hardly walk through a university campus without noticing posters taped to lamp posts or bulletin boards with …
The featured image for this story is reproduced with permission from the Health Council of Canada. Illustrator: Leah Fontaine Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples have, on average, much poorer health than other Canadians. Chronic diseases like diabetes are significantly more common among Aboriginal peoples, and they have a substantially shorter life expectancy than the general population. Mental illness is also alarmingly common in …
Why do so many doctors still think they are invincible to the influence of the pharmaceutical industry? Attractive, well-dressed, charismatic drug reps with pearly smiles and shiny flow charts still wait in waiting rooms. Lectures and conferences still occur where lunch is paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. Research studies are still published where investigators receive grants …
In my day to day I often will supervise residents or medical students who have taken it upon themselves to learn more about obesity medicine. I say taken it upon themselves because despite diet and weight related/responsive conditions being huge contributors to a physician’s caseload, medical schools and residency programs don’t seem to think that …
If you’re an Ontarian, by now I’m sure you’ve heard a fair bit about Ontario’s release yesterday of the recommendations made by our Healthy Kids Panel. I’m not going to go into a point by point discussion and dissection. Overall the report’s solid. It makes 23 recommendations and as I was warned in an off-the-record chat …
I recently saw a patient with cancer who came to the emergency room complaining of shortness of breath, who was coughing up small amounts of blood, had a racing heart and sharp chest pain that was worse when he took a deep breath. In deciding the likelihood that this patient had suffered a clot in …
As Director of Specialty Education at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, I was interested to read Kieran Quinn’s recent blog post entitled “Should we Embrace a Return of the Rotating Internship?” Mr. Quinn’s thoughtful post echoes many of the sentiments that the Royal College has recently embodied in its initiatives and …
Recently, I had a conversation with a physician who works with international groups. He had high praise for the BC Provincial Health Services Authority’s Indigenous Cultural Competency (ICC) training and wished it could be made available at an international level. He spoke of groups unintentionally insulting and offending one another. “Some of the most advanced …
The new report issued by the Health Council of Canada on cultural competency and cultural safety for Aboriginal People in urban health care is a welcome addition to what is hopefully a broader renaissance in how health care services are provided in this country. This report presents the outcomes of regional roundtable sessions across the …
The rotating internship was abolished in the early 1990s, mainly at the prompting of the College of Family Physicians of Canada to address shortages in Family Medicine. Prior to this, newly graduated medical students completed a one-year internship to obtain a general license to practice medicine and were then free to pursue further specialty training …
A growing number of Canadian doctors are underemployed after finishing their training. There are a number of likely causes, including a lack of infrastructure funding, delayed retirements, and a lack of health human resource planning at the national level. After about two decades of strongly worded public headlines and numerous government reports about doctor shortages, …
I’ve had a couple of sour experiences with teamwork since entering medical school. These experiences are bad teamwork of the usual sort: a miscommunication, a slighted ego, and pretty soon we’re starting arguments with no other reason than to prevent the other person from having his way. And though I know experiences of bad teamwork …