Chronic Illness

Rethinking mental health and substance use health solutions

What if you or someone you know needs mental health and substance use health care right now? Do you know exactly where to go to get what you need?

‘And the dead cannot recover’: The fatal consequences of closing Supervised Consumption Sites

Bill 223 ordered the closure of more than half of Ontario’s 17 supervised consumption sites with no equivalent replacement. For many medical students like me, this is personal.

The Non-Suturable Wounds

A poem inspired by University of Toronto medical student Ye-Jean Park's clerkship rotation.

The MS treatment gap: How costs and outdated policies limit care in Canada

Early, aggressive treatment can significantly improve outcomes for people living with MS. But provinces have yet to implement coverage policies that would ensure patients receive optimal care.

Doing right by the law, and doing right by our patients: The ‘means available to relieve suffering’ safeguards in MAiD

Canadians deserve access to robust and timely responses to their MAiD inquiries. Most important among these are conversations and supports intended to relieve suffering, that may ease or address the person’s desire to die.

Aspiration alone is not adequate: Breast screening task force missing the mark

When it comes to the Canadian Task Force, health advocacy is an integral role for any medical professional. There is no desire to generate more “business.”

Health care’s domino effect: Turning challenges into building blocks

The very system meant to save our lives is quietly collapsing. This isn’t just a slow-motion crisis. It’s a domino chain already falling.

Ontario is getting $7B from the tobacco settlement. Why the silence on where it’s going?

After an Ontario court approved a $32.5 billion big tobacco settlement, one question looms large – why has Ontario been silent on its plans for its share of this money?

Approved but denied: Canadians with neuromuscular diseases face unequal access to treatment

We are told health care in Canada is equal for everyone. But it is not. Particularly for patients with neuromuscular diseases, what you get depends on where you live.

Accessibility: The overlooked competency in medical school

The topic of disability is taught, albeit in a limited way, in our medical schools. Yet, one essential element remains glaringly underrepresented: accessibility.

‘Disability’ glaringly absent from federal cabinet portfolios

On May 13, Prime Minister Carney announced his new cabinet of 28 cabinet ministers and 10 secretaries of states, yet incredibly left Canadians with disabilities without any overt representation.

Equity isn’t optional – it is essential to solving Canada’s cancer problem

Without addressing inequity, we will never be able to solve the cancer problem in Canada.

When care doesn’t translate

For South Asian communities, improved care means earlier screening, culturally relevant guidance and meaningful language access. Without these changes, we risk continuing a pattern of preventable harm.

‘This Will Make You a Better Doctor’

As medical trainees, we spend years learning to care for patients. But absolutely nothing prepared me to be a doctor better than being a patient.

It’s not just the measles . . .

Many have forgotten how serious infections from Measules, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella can be because we have not seen them for many years. I am reminded every day by my mumps-induced deafness.

Breathing for both of us

I walked into the obstetrics unit – 36 weeks pregnant, out of breath and scared. I had been here before, but this time was different.

The simple metal box that could change the world

This quiet, repairable metal air cleaner is an inexpensive long-term disease prevention tool for public spaces.

Vaccine safety, politics and the nocebo effect

The nocebo effect has an important role to play in vaccine uptake and safety. We must vigorously counter the misinformation and political spin that helps to fuel the accelerating vaccine concern vortex.

Decades after it was declared eliminated, I fear the heartbreaking, avoidable consequences of measles

Fatal encephalitis from measles technically and biologically could be abolished as a human disease. Yet, I fear the downstream consequences of what the anti-vaccine movement could bring.

How health care works in Canada: What to know ahead of the federal election

With voters heading to the polls on April 28, we figured it’s time for a refresher on how health policy is made and where the parties stand.