Beatrice Preti is an R2 in internal medicine at the Queen's University.
It was a childhood dream, one that I loved well,
A fairy-tale story I’d heard someone tell
I replayed it at nights, as I lay in my bed
While visions of stethoscopes danced ins my head ...continue reading
Anser Daud is a medical student at the University of Toronto. He enjoys writing about health advocacy and human rights issues.
“We’re dealing with a situation that’s not far from here, this is serious,” said Toronto Raptors sportscaster Matt Devlin as he interrupted the proceedings of the championship ceremony at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on June 17. Those present—perhaps 2 million people by some estimates—began to wonder if their worst fears were beginning to materialize. Videos on social media show ...continue reading
Caitlin Dunne is a Co-Director at the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine (PCRM) in Vancouver and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia.
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics has linked fertility treatment with a risk of childhood cancer. The researchers linked data on babies from an American fertility database with birth and cancer registry data from 14 states. Their study spanned an eight-year time period, including 275 686 children conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and 2 266 847 children who were conceived naturally. The focus was on young children, up to four and a half years old. ...continue reading
Nigel Rawson is President at Eastlake Research Group
The 2019 federal budget announced that the federal government will take initial steps towards implementing national pharmacare to improve the affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs across Canada. The government's plan includes the development of "three foundational" elements - a national Canadian Drug Agency (CDA), a comprehensive national drug formulary, and a national strategy for high-cost rare-disorder medicines. ...continue reading
Noni MacDonald is a Professor at Dalhousie University
Shawn Harmon is a Policy Analyst at Dalhousie University
A recent family arbitration case that saw the arbitrator side with a mother who did not wish to vaccinate her two children is concerning. Their father, who shares custody of the children, wanted the children to be vaccinated. Arbitrator Herschel Fogelman appears to have given insufficient weight to the compelling evidence presented by the father and too much weight to questionable evidence presented by the mother and an expert witness whose expertise has been called into question. ...continue reading
Mark Speechley is a Professor of Epidemiology at Western University
The age-old debate over who should be addressed as ‘doctor’ lives again in recent letters to CMAJ. Of course, it is important not to confuse the public. Since more people get sick than get university educated, members of the public are more likely to have met a physician-doctor than a professor-doctor. As a PhD epidemiologist, ‘the population is my patient’. Consequently, when I meet my medical colleagues in the hospital, I do not expect to be addressed as ‘Doctor’, but should the whole population be in the hospital, and the crowding in the corridors be so acute that I would have the statistical power to practice my profession by expertly assembling the massed throngs of gurneys into long rows of cases and controls, or exposed and unexposed, as appropriate, I would most certainly expect to be addressed as such. ...continue reading
Philippe Barrette is a psychotherapist, workplace facilitator and former Assistant Clinical Professor at McMaster University, Department of Psychiatry.
David Streiner is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University; and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
Halfway through, Roma, the 2018 award-winning film set in the early 1970’s, the audience is suddenly confronted with witnessing a stillbirth. The scene elicited audible gasps from some viewers in a screening we attended, when the perfectly formed, dead baby was removed from its mother’s womb.
In the film, Cleo, the nanny and domestic worker for a middle-class family living in Mexico is rushed to hospital following an emotionally draining 9 months. Cleo’s boyfriend abandoned her shortly after learning of her pregnancy, and the family have endured marital tensions and a separation.
After an initial examination the assisting physician at the birth says, “I can’t hear a heartbeat," ...continue reading
Ally Istl is a senior General Surgery resident at Western University
Sarah Jones is a Pediatric Surgeon at Western University
The concept of Wellness in the professional medical arena has become a contemporary Gargantua that we are perpetually seeking to satisfy, but never able to sate. As other disciplines seek to make their trainees ‘Well’, wellness has also become a growing subject of exploration in surgical disciplines.
Wellness means different things to different people and formal definitions provide no clarity in the context of the medical profession: ‘the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal’ only provokes more ...continue reading
Iris Gorfinkel is a General Practitioner, and Founder and Principal Investigator at PrimeHealth Clinical Research in Toronto, Ontario.
On July 10, 2018 Health Canada issued a recall of several products containing the blood pressure lowering drug, valsartan. This came in response to a disclosure from its Chinese manufacturer that the drug had been contaminated with a known carcinogen. A massive effort to contact patients to stop the affected drug lots, and to replace it with an alternative, ensued. Few clinicians had been even remotely aware that ...continue reading
Emily Harris is the Business Manager for the Heart and Vascular Program at Unity Health Toronto – St. Michael's Hospital
Healthcare is a varied and multidisciplinary world. From clinical medicine to social work to data collection, expertise from many diverse specialties is required to ensure that hospitals run successfully and that patients receive the very best care.
The value of a collaborative environment in healthcare is ...continue reading