Patient experience

Why aren’t we listening to the people who recover?

If we wanted to understand what it takes to win a Super Bowl, we definitely would be listening to what seven-time winner Tom Brady has to say. We also would listen to teams that lost. Their experiences matter, too. But it would seem strange to study who wins football championships without spending considerable time talking to the people who actually won them. To understand cancer survivorship, we listen not only to oncologists and researchers but also to people who have survived cancer and gone on to live healthy, rewarding and meaningful lives. So why is addiction recovery different?

Overcoming the insulin taboo

The insulin pen had been sitting on his kitchen table for months. The 46‑year‑old man, a retired Sri Lanka born chef living in the Toronto area, had survived oral cancer, pancreatitis and a lifetime of hard work. But nothing frightened him more than the small plastic pen meant to save his life. On a June morning, during a routine check after his jaw surgery, he finally confessed his fears.

Patient partnership without pay is not partnership: Rethinking how we value lived experience

Beneath the progressive rhetoric extolling the virtues of patient partnership in health research lies an uncomfortable truth: patient partnership is largely unpaid volunteer work.

When the numbers match the pain: Measuring what health care misses at the moment of pregnancy loss

When I miscarried in Canada, the clinical encounter that followed felt like I was being handed a form when what I needed was a human being.

Art is health infrastructure: Rethinking gender-based violence responses for newcomer women

For newcomer survivors of gender-based domestic violence, expressive arts are not decorative. They are a practical, culturally responsive component of recovery.

When the rescuer becomes the patient: Reflections on accidental high-energy defibrillation during Code Blue

As physicians, we go to work each day with the intent to provide patient care and help others. Frankly, some days are better than others. But we don’t expect to get injured at work and urgently become patient ourselves.

Shamed to death: How stigma, not science, is killing Canadians with lung cancer

Lung cancer screening should be available to everyone at risk, regardless of where they live or the source of their illness. 

Ethical recruitment of internationally educated health professionals: From principles to action

With one of the highest volumes of migrant intake in the world, Canada has both a responsibility and an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in ethical recruitment and for policymakers to support implementation of WHO code-aligned policies and practices.

Adherence starts with understanding: Why health literacy is a system responsibility

On World Adherence Day, the message should be simple but transformative: before we ask patients to follow treatment, we must ensure they truly understand it.

Co-payments ‘a step backward’ for refugees and the health-care system

It’s imperative we protect access to health care for refugees and asylum claimants. There is no compromise when it comes to equitable health care.

Reclaiming the joy of cooking for people living with chronic conditions

The millions of Canadians living with diabetes deserve better than a lifetime of restriction and shame.

Bill to criminalize forced sterilization sparks debate over reproductive justice and medical practice

Bill S-228, which would criminalize forced and coerced sterilization with an up to 14-year prison sentence, is on its way to becoming law. But is it a step in the right direction? Experts weigh in.

The hidden cost of dismissal: How we amplify chronic pain in clinical settings

Chronic pain affects more than one in five Canadians. But not all pain is shaped by our bones, muscles and systems. It also is shaped by context.

Cognitive Stimulation Therapy: A human-centred, cost-effective approach to dementia care

Health systems across Canada need to devote more time and resources to implementing non-pharmacological programs such as CST to provide comprehensive dementia care in an equitable way.

Schooling or suicide: The ethical responsibility of educational institutions

Students are dying silently in the places meant to shape their futures. Schools cannot prevent every tragedy, but they also cannot ignore the role they play.

Kevin’s story: My journey with my brother, dementia and Down Syndrome

Across the country, we talk about dementia more than we used to, but too often, conversations remain fragmented - and people with disabilities are rarely at the centre of planning.

‘Dangerous outcomes’: The limitations of BMI as a diagnostic tool

Researchers, clinicians and advocates have been raising concerns about the BMI, saying it is not a comprehensive indicator of health and using it can have disastrous results, especially for racialized populations.

Don’t give up on your health. Give up on the old playbook

As January recedes in the rearview mirror, so have most New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, eat better or get fit. But when success is only defined by a number on the scale, disappointment is almost inevitable.

The euphemism economy: How Ontario health care learned to stop worrying and love the hallway

There’s a difference between softening language to ease emotional pain and softening language to hide systemic failure. One is compassion. The other is camouflage.

The quiet commercialization of primary care records

An emerging model is quietly turning Canadian patient medical records, and patients themselves, into lucrative commercial assets – often without patients' explicit knowledge or consent.