Healthcare Delivery

It’s time to make compassion more relevant in our world

A generative compassion approach looks at the bigger picture and proactively asks the question: What more needs to be done to prevent more harm from occurring?

Team Canada’s Alicia Souveny: Car crash survivor and blood donation advocate

Alicia Souveny lost her left leg in a car accident in 2019 and would have lost her life, too, had she not received enough blood in time from donors. She's now an ambassador for the Canadian Blood Services and a member of the national women's para-hockey team.

Ethical issues cloud online Ozempic prescription services

Patients with obesity are caught in the middle of two ethical issues rooted in weight bias – the reason the online services exist and the online services themselves.

The Big Data minefield as AI shapes the future of health care

Ongoing clinical feedback from everyday use of AI models forms the basis for AI’s self-learning and continuous improvement. Physicians will have to realize the agency – and the responsibility – they hold in interacting with this feedback loop.

Involuntary drug treatment: ‘Compassionate intervention’ or policy dead end?

Involuntary treatment for substance use is being proposed as a solution to the toxic drug supply crisis in provinces across the country. But do programs like this work?

Why are we not using evidence-informed workload management in health care?

Excessive staff workloads lie at the root of the current human resources crisis in health care. With nurses and front-line staff leaving the profession in droves, we need better workload management.

Fluoride in Canadian taps: Is it ethical to neglect the oral needs of the marginalized?

The cessation of community water fluoridation has left a gap in the oral health landscape, particularly among vulnerable populations.

Resident matching can’t start with CaRMS: Why we need a national plan for the health workforce

"Medical residents are a critical part of the health system. Together, we can plan for a future where they and their patients are set up for long-term success."

Cautious, compassionate safe supply is good public policy

Safe supply is not a magic bullet to cure our overdose emergency. However, under cautious guidelines, prescriber-based safe supply initiatives have a role to play in saving lives.

Sidelined and underutilized: Red tape, finances discouraging thousands of internationally trained nurses already here

Ontario needs to hire 24,000 nurses to meet the national average. Internationally-educated nurses that are already in the province could help fill this gap.

‘Nurses are not a commodity. We are human’: Kari, registered nurse, Toronto

‘This used to be a job that could sustain you … it’s not anymore’: Kris Vickberg, porter, Vancouver

‘We shouldn’t have to work 2 or 3 jobs to survive’: Lisa Allen, personal care attendant, St. John

‘Choosing to a job that pays less, because you enjoy it, only goes so far’: Vanessa, family doctor, Winnipeg

May 1 is Doctors’ Day. My thanks go to patients, students and physician colleagues

Doctors’ Day (May 1) is really about all those in medicine working together to make our health-care system better for all. We just need politicians and policy makers to step out of the way.

Is triage a dead end for health care? 

Under pressure, our health-care system is increasingly turning to triage. But has this ubiquitous response started causing more harm than good?

Nicotine pouches: Salvation for smokers or temptation for teens?

Instead of being promoted as a smoking cessation tool, nicotine pouches been portrayed by some as an attempt by Big Tobacco to addict a new generation of youth to nicotine, obscuring its life-saving potential.

Leading with the good news in family medicine

Do we want to lead with the good news or the bad news? The tug-of-war about the narrative in family medicine is hurting us.

Students call for improved refugee health education in Ontario medical schools

While Canada accepts thousands of refugees each year, refugee health care falls short. Improved education on refugee health in medical schools can help bridge the gap.

Food oral immunotherapy through a parent’s lens: A paradigm shift in food allergy management

A case study highlights the importance of the patient’s perspective in navigating food allergies and of advocating for yourself in the face of scarce resources.