Former Saskatchewan Premier and national New Democratic Party leader T.C. (Tommy) Douglas in 1965. Douglas was instrumental in the creation of Medicare.
The Canadian Press
At the dawn of Medicare, Saskatchewan’s community co-op clinics pioneered team-based, holistic care. Now, with the health system in crisis 60 years later, it may be time to return to that care model.
Over the past month, clinics have seen a surge of sick children presenting with RSV, the flu and other viruses.
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Family physicians are on the frontline of health care, and their observations and support can help us get through the upcoming winter season.
Gender-diverse adults have a harder time getting effective primary and preventive health care than their nontransgender counterparts.
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Sometimes you just can’t wait to see a doctor. With the addition of more virtual services during COVID, these days you have more options.
Building safer workplaces requires leaders who understand how years of resource constraints, unhealthy work environments, abuse from patients and a pandemic have contributed to overwhelming burnout and job dissatisfaction among workers.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
The future of our health system depends on recruiting and retaining passionate and highly skilled health-care workers. It’s essential to build work environments where they feel supported and safe.
Until the government acknowledges the critical role family physicians have in population health and on easing the burden on acute hospital care, pressures will only be relieved temporarily.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
A strong primary care system keeps patients away from emergency departments and helps patients self-manage illnesses. But Ontario’s plan to ease pressure on emergency rooms ignores family medicine.
Googling symptoms to self-diagnose is not the same as virtual health care.
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Searching symptoms online has become so common there is a name for the condition of health anxiety induced by self-diagnosis on the internet: Cyberchondria.
The price physicians charge for every surgery, checkup or other procedure has a precise formula behind it.
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Voluntary medical societies have important roles in professional education and advocacy for doctors and patients, but there is need for transparency about relationships with pharma and health industry.
The future of virtual learning? In Canada, doctors and nurses are engaged in professional development studies alongside design engineer students in Italy.
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Medical schools need long-term equity planning and built-in accountability measures in order to help realize a larger vision of anti-racist and inclusive health care.
The pathway for foreign doctors to practise in New Zealand is neither easy nor very fair, meaning an over-stretched health system is missing out on valuable expertise.
Police officers speak to a health-care professional outside the emergency department at Toronto General Hospital during a protest against COVID-19 measures in September 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Although demanding, disruptive and violent patients are a major contributor to physician burnout, solutions to address this increasing problem are not a priority.
The quality of grit – passion and sustained persistence – is a useful predictor of burnout and exhaustion for doctors and maybe the rest of us too.
In addition to patient care, many doctors also have heavy administrative burdens, including insurance company requests and government forms that advocate for their patients’ needs, as well as all the challenges of running an office.
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Less than half of Canadians can see their doctor same-day, and millions don’t even have a family doctor. Improving access to care means providing doctors with the support they need to focus on patients.
Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, an Ottawa family doctor who hosted several pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinics, speaks in Ottawa in August 2021 during JabaPalooza, a rally calling on Ontario to adopt a provincial COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The decisions of medical health-care professionals like doctors and nurse practitioners are more legally significant than ever before since they are determining vaccination exemptions.
The situation in the delivery room can change suddenly, and doctors need to react fast.
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It’s human nature to unconsciously rely on quick rules to help make spur-of-the-moment decisions. New research finds physicians use these shortcuts, too, which can be bad news for some patients.
It’s estimated that up to 400,000 Americans die every year from medical mistakes.
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Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne