Sooner top doctor post is filled, the better for public health, says former medical officer

April 28, 2024admin

Sooner top doctor post is filled, the better for public health, says former medical officer

It’s been more than six months since Dr. Jennifer Russell announced her resignation as New Brunswick’s chief medical officer of health, but the Department of Health has no update on the search for her replacement.

The recruitment process is ongoing, said department spokesperson Sean Hatchard.

The department “is working with an executive search firm to conduct a thorough search for this critical position,” he said in an emailed statement late Friday, a month after CBC News first requested information.

He did not name the firm, elaborate on the process, or provide the job posting.

Nor did he respond to numerous questions, such what kind of interest they’re seeing, or how Public Health is coping with being short-staffed while Dr. Yves Léger, the acting deputy chief medical officer of health, fills in as acting chief.

A former Nova Scotia deputy chief medical officer of health says these types of positions can be difficult to fill for a variety of reasons, including concerns of political interference.

But Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed, who served for 16 years until 2021, says it’s important to fill them as soon as possible to be fully staffed and able to respond quickly to whatever outbreak or emergency could pop up next.

‘No taking your foot off the gas’

“There’s no taking your foot off the gas,” said Watson-Creed, who is now an associate dean in the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University and an assistant professor in community health and epidemiology.

While the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, there are other emergencies unfolding around the world, which must be watched closely, she said, citing measles and the opioid crisis as examples.

A close-up of a woman wearing a black top and grey blazer, leaning against a brick wall, looking at the camera. — Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed is an associate dean in the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University and an assistant professor in community health and epidemiology. (Submitted

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Health Advice

April 3, 2024admin

Can AI answer medical questions better than your doctor?

Last year, headlines describing a study about artificial intelligence (AI) were eye-catching, to say the least:

At first glance, the idea that a chatbot using AI might be able to generate good answers to patient questions isn’t surprising. After all, ChatGPT boasts that it passed a final exam for a Wharton MBA, wrote a book in a few hours, and composed original music.

But showing more empathy than your doctor? Ouch. Before assigning final honors on quality and empathy to either side, let’s take a second look.

What tasks is AI taking on in health care?

Already, a rapidly growing list of medical applications of AI includes drafting doctor’s notes, suggesting diagnoses, helping to read x-rays and MRI scans, and monitoring real-time health data such as heart rate or oxygen level.

But the idea that AI-generated answers might be more empathetic than actual physicians struck me as amazing — and sad. How could even the most advanced machine outperform a physician in demonstrating this important and particularly human virtue?

Can AI deliver good answers to patient questions?

It’s an intriguing question.

Imagine you’ve called your doctor’s office with a question about one of your medications. Later in the day, a clinician on your health team calls you back to discuss it.

Now, imagine a different scenario: you ask your question by email or text, and within minutes receive an answer generated by a computer using AI. How would the medical answers in these two situations compare in terms of quality? And how might they compare in terms of empathy?

To answer these questions, researchers collected 195 questions and answers from anonymous users of an online social media site that were posed to doctors who volunteer to answer. The questions were later submitted to ChatGPT and the chatbot’s

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Health Information

March 1, 2024admin

Doctor suspended for accessing patient records unauthorized

An Ontario doctor had his licence temporarily suspended by a disciplinary tribunal after it found he had wrongly accessed patient records, including family members and colleagues, hundreds of times over the span of years.

Dr. Ashley John Mercado, a diagnostic radiologist who practised at various hospitals in Southwestern Ontario, admitted to professional misconduct and was reprimanded with a four-month suspension and $6,000 payment to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

A patient prompted an internal investigation into this “breach of privacy,” flagging concerns about the doctor’s unauthorized access to their medical history, in July 2021. According to an agreed statement of facts, Dr. Mercado used the electronic medical record system to access the information of 20 patients – all people he personally knew – between 2015 and 2021.

He conducted these searches hundreds of times, using his personal computer and hospital devices, and accessed personal health information, including patient visit history and the reasons for their visits, the documents state.

According to the agreed statement of facts, most of the searches targeted the patient who filed the complaint, their spouse and their child – totalling 484 searches, sometimes multiple times a day – particularly after a falling out with the patient in 2019.

These searches only stopped after the complaint was filed, an investigation was launched and a “denial of access” was placed on the physician, the documents note.

“Such unauthorized access by a physician poses a serious threat not only to patient privacy, but also to public trust in the health care system that is charged with protecting patients’ most private information,” the tribunal stated.

In the documents, the tribunal noted that Dr. Mercado was previously suspended from his hospital for three months in 2022 before returning to the

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Health Care

February 24, 2024admin

Doctor shortage slowly improving in North Vancouver, West Vancouver

But specialists still struggle with number of referrals and some patients have given up trying to find a doctor

The bad news: thousands of people are still without a family doctor on the North Shore, putting strain on both the hospital’s emergency department and local specialists, who find themselves standing in for primarily care.

The good news: very slowly, those numbers are beginning to shift, with a net gain of family doctors practicing on the North Shore in the past 18 months and fewer patients on official waiting lists.

“Overall, the trend is changing,” said Dr. Dean Brown, co-lead of the North Shore’s Division of Family Practice. “But we’re just starting to see the shifts. We still have a long path ahead of us.”

For the most part, doctors in family practice are still working in a “100-year-old model,” said Brown, which doesn’t work for either doctors or patients in many cases, especially if they have complicated health issues.

The health care system is starting to address that, said Brown, through the introduction of primary care networks, which includes family doctors working in teams with both nurses and mental health clinicians whose role it is to follow up with patients and connect them with community resources.

Those changes are new, and the impact won’t be felt immediately, said Brown. But he said it’s a step in the right direction.

Provincially, the North Shore is still officially considered an “underserved area” in terms of the number of family doctors serving its population – a designation that historically was more likely to be attached to rural and remote areas of the province.

Officially, the numbers are getting slowly better.

From the period April 2022 to Jan. 2024, for instance, there were 43 new physicians who started practising on the North Shore, 10

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Health Care

February 10, 2024admin

Don’t have a family doctor in B.C.? Here are your options

From ERs to UPCCs and 811, here’s where else you can get care in B.C. if you don’t have a family doctor.

Published Feb 05, 2024 • 3 minute read

Patients visit the North Vancouver Urgent & Primary Care Centre at 221 West Esplanade. Photo by Francis Georgian /PNG

Nearly one million people in B.C. don’t have a family doctor — roughly one in five.

Health experts say having a primary care provider is better as they can get to know you and your medical history, monitor changes in your health through the years and provide continuity of care.

Article content

The B.C. College of Family Physicians suggest ways to look for family doctors, including:

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Health Advice

February 7, 2024admin

Americans will use AI for heart health but still want advice from a doctor, Cleveland Clinic finds

A majority of Americans believe AI will improve heart care in the long run — but for now, there are trust issues, according to the Cleveland Clinic’s annual national survey about cardiac care.

About eight in 10 Americans said they would consult a ChatBot for health advice but nine in 10 said they’d still get a doctor’s advice before acting on anything a computer or device tells them, the survey released Thursday found.

Dr. Tamanna Singh, co-director of Cleveland Clinic’s Sports Cardiology Center, said the results show people are open to recommendations from AI, but that doesn’t mean technology replaces a doctor.

“There’s still a lot of trust that’s put into [people’s] providers, even more so than some of this reliability on the accuracy of diagnoses just based upon something as simple as a chatbox,” Singh said.

Dr. Samir Kapadia, chairperson of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, added that doctors are receiving an influx of inquiries on AI in health care. This year’s survey was aimed at better understanding how patients feel about its use, Kapadia said.

“The increasing number of advancements in AI and in digital health has the potential to transform healthcare delivery, especially in cardiovascular care,” Kapadia said in a news release.

The survey also shed light on how many Americans use technology to monitor their health. Half of respondents said they use at least one type of technology to monitor their health. Daily step count is the most-tracked health metric, followed by heart rate and calorie burn. Nearly one-quarter of Americans said they use monitoring technology to find motivation or accountability for achieving their daily activity goals, according to the survey.

Singh said those findings give her reason for optimism.

“What truly excites me is the way that we could use a lot of

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Health Advice

December 27, 2023admin

As a doctor, here are 5 things I want my patients to know

This marks a year since I began writing The Washington Post’s Ask A Doctor column and what a privilege it has been. But I’ve been doing more than dishing advice. I’ve also been listening — reading your comments, getting emails and talking to my patients.

What I’ve learned is that the science is only the bare bones of the story. Your lived experience is the heart. After reflecting on what I’ve heard this year, these are five things I want my patients to know.

1. Our health isn’t all determined by the big moments

Preventive health comes down to the innumerable micro-decisions each of us make every day. Bacon at breakfast may be another inconsequential food in your week, while a lifetime of eating processed meats can tip the scales between colon cancer and health.

Those smaller moments can have a butterfly effect you can’t always foresee. One patient of mine agreed to adopt his relative’s dog three years ago — mainly because he felt lonely and wanted companionship. Despite being a self-described “couch potato,” he’s since been easily hitting the recommended physical activity guidelines every week because he started taking his dog for runs around the neighborhood. In addition to the mental health benefits, he’s no longer prediabetic.

How would his trajectory have been different if he had never adopted a pet, if he had hired a dog walking service instead or decided to play fetch instead of joining his dog on a run?

Where would his health be in 10 years if he had developed diabetes?

Our tiny daily decisions add up. Healthy choices made even some of the time are better than unhealthy choices made all of the time.

2. Everyone is frustrated with doctor’s appointments.

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Department Health

November 23, 2023admin

Department of Health suing Antigonish doctor in connection with refusal to get COVID-19 vaccination

The Department of Health and Wellness is suing a doctor in Antigonish in connection with her refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Attorney General, on behalf of the department, filed a notice of action in a Halifax court on Nov. 2 against Dr. Lesya Skerry, alleging breach of contract. Skerry was suspended from practicing as a general internist after she refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.

Skerry hasn’t filed a defence and the allegations haven’t been tested in court.

Skerry completed her medical training, specializing in anesthesiology, in Ukraine in 1997. In 2014, after immigrating to Canada, Skerry entered Dalhousie University’s faculty of medicine via its IMG Clerkship Program. Each year, that program admits two qualified candidates who are international medical graduates into a clerkship at the medical school. Once those students complete that program, they can enter the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) as a Dalhousie graduate.

Return of Service agreement

In June 2014, Skerry signed a Return of Service agreement with the Department of Health and Wellness in which the department would fund her final two years of medical school.

Skerry, for her part, would practice in one of three locations in Nova Scotia in need of a physician. Skerry would work at least a 37.5-hour work week, plus on-call hours, for 46 weeks a year for four years after the completion of her residency.

The agreement also said if Skerry terminated the agreement or otherwise failed to fulfill her obligations, she’d be required to pay $9,000 for each month of the return of service agreement she didn’t work. That amount would have to be paid back in a lump sum.

Skerry completed medical school at Dalhousie in 2016, and accepted a residency training program in internal medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. She started

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Department Health

November 11, 2023admin

Department of Health, Health P.E.I. taking over doctor recruiting program

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS

Hooked on Afishianado Smoked Salmon: Taste of Nova Scotia’s Product of the Year | SaltWire

Watch on YouTube: “Hooked on Afishianado Smoked Salmon: Taste of Nova Scotia’s Product of the Year | SaltWire”

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The Medical Society of P.E.I. is stepping away from recruiting physicians after managing a program known as physicians recruiting physicians for three years.

In November 2020, the society was contracted by the Department of Health and Wellness to manage the program. Three years later, the MSPEI, which represents 400 physicians in the province, credits this program with helping to recruit 81 physicians to the province. As part of the program, the medical society hired Dr. Megan Miller as its chief physician recruiter to help guide new doctors through the province’s recruitment process.

While much of the focus in recent years has been on P.E.I.’s shortage of physicians, the MSPEI program has demonstrated success. Evaluations of the physicians recruiting physicians program have shown that new doctors were satisfied with the program.

However, in an Oct. 31 email to members, MSPEI president Krista Cassell said in the program’s three-year tenure, it did not succeed in “creating more cohesion between the physician hiring and onboarding process” and in reducing recruitment barriers.

“Earlier this spring, MSPEI met with the Department and Health P.E.I. to discuss the future of our contract,” Cassell said in the Oct. 31 email. “While all parties saw value in the shared recruitment model, Health P.E.I.’s leadership team cited that lack of autonomy and accountability in owning the recruitment process was a significant barrier.”

Dr. Krista Cassell, president of the Medical Society of P.E.I. - SaltWire file — Dr. Krista Cassell, president of the Medical Society of P.E.I. – SaltWire file

Cassell said the MSPEI will be passing on the role of recruiting doctors to the province.

In a statement to

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Health Care

November 1, 2023admin

Opinion: Revamping family doctor training won’t solve health care’s problems

Risa Freeman is a family doctor and vice-chair of education and scholarship in the University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. Stuart Murdoch is a family doctor and postgraduate education program director in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Family medicine, the foundation of our health system, is in crisis. Six and a half million Canadians lack access to a family doctor, a situation that is set to worsen as existing physicians retire or leave comprehensive care.

To ensure that everyone has access to a family doctor who provides high-quality care, we need to attract more medical students into family medicine, prepare them to be highly competent, comprehensive and compassionate physicians, and support them to stay in comprehensive family practice.

But a change that will increase the time family doctors spend in training has some people, such as Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, worried that it will make the doctor shortage worse. And many, including health ministers Canada-wide, have reaffirmed their support for the status quo.

Currently, family medicine residents – those who have completed a medical degree and choose to specialize in family medicine – spend two years training to be family doctors. Earlier this year, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, which establishes the standards for postgraduate family medicine training in Canadian medical schools, set new national requirements. The new rules, which come into place in 2027, will make residencies in family medicine take three years to complete instead of two. The rationale is to better prepare doctors for the breadth and complexity of family medicine.

There are compelling arguments both for and against.

Adding an extra year of training could make family medicine less attractive for some medical school graduates. Our residents tell us that, after as much as a

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Tag: doctor

‘No taking your foot off the gas’

What tasks is AI taking on in health care?

Can AI deliver good answers to patient questions?

Article content

1. Our health isn’t all determined by the big moments

2. Everyone is frustrated with doctor’s appointments.

Return of Service agreement

Read more