Saskatchewan wants better care for seniors

Saskatchewan Health will be exploring the grey matter of many groups to create a seniors' care strategy.

Health Minister Don McMorris wants to identify and address problems in current community-based care programs, from home care to facility care.

"The goal is to keep seniors at home as long as possible but we hear that there are some gaps in that process, so we want to ensure that those gaps are filled," he said.

"We'll be starting to work with the regional health authorities because they play a major role and also senior groups and all the parties that are involved to identify where are the breakdowns."

Dr. William Klassen, a retired physician and senior, applauds keeping seniors at home as long as possible. But he said the elderly often have special needs such as mobility problems, which require supports such as paratransit to be expanded to improve access to health-care services.

"Those who use paratransit say the services are very good but hard to get," he said.

"Timely access to physicians is important for all residents, but seniors often have chronic and acute diseases so they are more vulnerable," Klassen said.

"The health care and the independence of seniors face one issue that is unique to them and that is the changes that come with old age, that makes their health problems more difficult to diagnose and sometimes more difficult to manage," Klassen said.

"That's an area that geriatricians, a physician who is a specialist in dealing with old age, play a special part. Unfortunately our province has only one geriatrician and only one geriatric unit and that's in Saskatoon."

Read the full story here

Physician becomes Prince Albert Citizen of the Year 2007

"She is a physician who has gone above and beyond the call of duty, especially in the advancement of the health of women of Prince Albert and northern Saskatche-wan ... I find it simply amazing that she delivered approximately 270 (babies) in Prince Albert this past year," Ajay Krishan, one of her nominators, wrote in a letter to The Prince Albert Kinsmen Club and the Daily Herald.

Dr. Lalita Malhotra has won Canada's highest civic accolade and counts the 2007 Prince Albert Citizen of the Year as one of her greatest honours.

Last Wednesday she was named the Prince Albert Citizen of the Year by The Prince Albert Kinsmen Club and the Daily Herald.

Malhotra was awarded the Order of Canada in 2006 and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2001.
But this new honour is very important to Malhotra, who has called Prince Albert home for 32 years.
"This is the biggest honour Prince Albert can give me ... When your own community honours you like this, it is totally different. I am very touched, very emotional."

As an obstetrician, Malhotra is known in the province for delivering an stunning average of 250 babies a year.

"Every baby is a thrill and it keeps me going. I feel every child is a challenge to me and it is a learning experience every day. I have no intention of giving up."

Read the rest of the story here

Burnout drives many women out of medicine

Across all health care occupations, from nurses to pharmacists to dental technicians, roughly 80 percent of the workforce is female, according to Statistics Canada.

It's becoming increasingly common as more and more women pursue medical careers, and it's the latest twist on what may be the country's most critical health care issue: the doctor shortage.

But the physician population has always been male-dominated, and this influx of women will add fuel to the doctor crisis in Canada.
Female doctors commit fewer hours and fewer years to the medical system than males, and family duties are at least one reason why.

Despite their demanding careers, women are still given the bigger proportion of child care, housekeeping and elder care, but this pressure comes with a price.

"Burnout"drives many women out of medicine altogether, and with five million Canadians currently without a family doctor, things are only getting worse.

A 2005 survey found that just 23 percent of Canadians were able to see a physician the same day they needed one, placing this country last among the six studied, including the U.S., Britain and Australia.

Canada's doctor-patient ratio is among the worst of any industrialized nation: with just 2.2 physicians per thousand people, it ranks 24th out of 28 OECD countries, which iswell below the average of three.
Among the G8 countries, Canada even ranks dead last when it comes to physician supply.

Source: CNW Group

Editor's opinion:
"A conclusion could be that husbands of women that pursue medical careers, are not contributing to the household and child care sufficiently."

Calgary moms and company owners recall gourmet baby food

A small company, run by two Calgary mothers is voluntarily recalling some of its gourmet baby food after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned the product could harm children with severe peanut allergies.

Some Baby Gourmet products may contain peanut protein or sulphites not mentioned on the label, said the warning issued last Monday.

The baby foods in question include organic Moroccan lamb with couscous, which might contain undeclared peanut protein, and seasonal fruit compote, which contains undeclared sulphites, said Garfield Balsom, a food safety and recall specialist with the food and inspection agency.

Peanuts are not used in any of the locally made foods, but the dried couscous could have come in contact with peanuts in the packing plant before being sent to Calgary, said Jennifer Broe, who launched the company with her sister two years ago.

So far, only one allergic reaction has been reported in connection to Baby Gourmet products. Calgary Health Region officials said Monday the patient suffered an allergic reaction caused by the peanut protein in the product. The patient was treated at a physician's office and did not require hospitalization.

The recall involves foods that were sold at the Calgary Farmer's Market and at Mise en Place in Lakeview Plaza. The products have only been distributed in Calgary.

There has been one reported illness associated with the products, which are common food allergens.

The recipes included in the recall will be discontinued until Baby Gourmet can finish a thorough investigation of all ingredients, said Broe.

"We make this food like it's for our own children. We will definitely take every precaution to look into the recipes and research all the ingredients to make sure everything is listed," she said.

Source: Canada.com

Two great stories about Canadian health care professionals

Here are two interesting stories I came across, about two Canadian health care professionals who have been active elsewhere in the world to share knowledge with their local health care professional counterparts.

Both are on their own, unique mission:

The first is Dr. Laura Louie, a naturopathic doctor from Vancouver, who set up an acupuncture clinic for HIV infected people in Thailand.

"It's Tuesday morning and Louie is only a few days off the plane from Canada when she arrives at the Mae On Clinic, bright and early so she can consult with head nurse Unchalee Pultajuk before the patients start arriving for the weekly HIV-acupuncture clinic."

"........Patients move from the acupuncture beds to a chair where a Tui Na massage completes their treatment. The traditional Chinese massage is done with bare hands -- "with healing, touch is so important"

The second is Dr. David Chaulk, a pediatrician from Alberta, who teaches Yemeni health care professionals the advanced knowledge from Canada and to help them catch-up.

“When I first arrived in Yemen and began teaching it was easy to have a feeling of superiority — for lack of a better word,” Chaulk said. “As Canadian physicians we have far better education, far superior training and more experience."

"..........You see two children to a bed, two patients with one intravenous infusion going to both patients and extremely malnourished, dehydrated and dying children that would be in intensive care units in Canada lying on a bed, being cared for primarily by the parents and with no monitoring equipment or any type of modern medical devices..........."

Enjoy reading the full stories (just click on their names)

Revolutionary new Hypothesis about Human Memory

When it comes to human memory, it seems that Canadians are endowed with a special gift of owning the right to unravel its mystery.

The currently pursued hypothesis is based on the proposals made by Donald Hebb, a psychology professor from Canada.

Recently Dr. Kunjumon Vadakkan, also a Canadian, has come up with a new hypothesis named as “Semblance Hypothesis”.

Back in 1949, Professor Hebb proposed that when two neurons fire together then the junction between them, named synapse, undergoes changes.

Since then scientists all around the globe were struggling more than half a century to put together these pieces of synaptic change puzzle to find answers for memory.
Even though experiments conducted thereafter proved changes in synapses, sufficient mechanism for memory was not found.
Alternative proposals for the mechanism of memory also couldn’t find answers.

Scientific nature of memory requires theoretical suggestions similar to that in Physics, followed by laboratory investigations to test it.

Dr. Vadakkan now says that our memory is from “systematic functional illusions” occurring at the shared post synapses and exneurons.
The physician turned biochemist from Kerala state in India came to Canada after spending some years of research in India.
He has received a PhD in Physiology and Neuroscience from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Kunjumon Vadakkan's brand new “Semblance Hypothesis” about the human memory is now published as a book

Read the full explanation about the hypothesis here

Health claims endorsed by physicians debunked

In an article published in the year-end edition of the British Medical Journal last weekend, the Indianapolis-based team of Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll identified seven widely held health beliefs in need of critical review.

They included the notion that people should drink at least eight glasses of water a day, that we only use 10 percent of our brains, and that turkey causes fatigue.

"These medical myths are a light-hearted reminder that we can be wrong and need to question what other falsehoods we unwittingly propagate as we practice medicine," the authors say in the article.

The researchers used Google and Medline, an archive of medical literature, to find evidence to support or debunk health claims endorsed by physicians and the general public.

The following myths are busted or just have meager medical evidence:

• People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
  
• We use only 10% of our brains
  
• Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
  
• Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
  
• Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
  
• Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
  
• Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.

Source: British Medical Journal

Editor:
"Enjoy reading the report, it's rather amusing!"

Lung disease COPD dramatically undiagnosed

New research from the Lung Association shows chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of devastating respiratory conditions including emphysema and bronchitis, is dramatically undiagnosed.

About 1.5 million Canadians are diagnosed with COPD, while another 1.6 million are living with the disease without knowing it. The 3 million Canadians living with COPD is double previous estimates.

COPD is also prevalent among younger baby boomers.
One in seven, aged 45 to 49, or 375,000 Canadians, may have the disease.

COPD sufferers lose their lung function gradually, so they may not bring any specific complaints to their doctor, said Dr. Alan Kaplan, a Richmond Hill family doctor and chairman of the Family Physician Airway Group of Canada.

"Because you lose it slowly, you don't realize it," he said.

Kaplan said prevention, namely quitting smoking, is the best way to tackle COPD. He also called for better early diagnosis in Canadians, particularly smokers, over 40 with recurring symptoms such as coughs and respiratory infections.

"We can't reverse it. We can't stop it. We can slow its progression," Kaplan said.

Source: Sun Media

Country-wide Physicians' health checkup

Doctors across the country are getting a checkup.

A national study launched by the Centre for Physician Health and Well-being of the Canadian Medical Association will survey physicians' health, from nutrition and physical activity to job satisfaction and burnout.

"There's abundant data in the literature showing a relationship between mental health issues such as depression and exercise for example," said Dr. Erica Frank, the principal investigator and the Canada Research Chair in Preventative Medicine and Population Health at the University of British Columbia.

"There are a number of other areas that we'll be looking at as well. One of the key pieces that we're going to be looking at is physicians' personal health practices because there's a lot of really interesting research that shows that can really make a difference in the population."

The surveys are sent out to more than 8,000 randomly selected practising physicians.

Dr. Vino Padayachee, the chief of staff at St. Joseph's Hospital of Estevan and the past Saskatchewan Medical Association president, is keen to participate and hopes many of his counterparts do the same.

"This is not just about physician health," he said. "Indirectly it's about patient health. If you have healthy physicians, then you'll have healthy patients. We don't allow airline pilots to fly beyond a certain number of hours because of the risk to the passengers and we should look at the same thing for physicians as well."

CMA research conducted in 2003 reported that 46 per cent of physician respondents were in advanced stages of burnout.

Read the full story here

Drug industry used too much as source for Doctors' prescription

Following my earlier article of today about drug use among seniors:

Dr. John Haggie, a Canadian Medical Association board member who chairs its ad hoc working group on pharmaceutical issues, said government warnings often get lost in the stack of documents physicians routinely receive.

Haggie warns that there is a lack of impartial information available to doctors.

"Most of the information the physician would receive in the general course of a week on medication by and large tends to come from material from drug companies," he said.

Drug companies have a very active sales and marketing team, he said, and they follow Health Canada warnings by issuing their own.

Health Canada warnings are sent out to physicians by fax, e-mail and mail, but are often one among many documents received.

Haggie said the CMA is trying to work with the academic community to provide doctors with unbiased education material to replace documents received from drug companies.

The association is also trying to get tools on its website so doctors can quickly access the latest peer-reviewed information on what drugs are safe and which need to be used with caution.

Source: CBC

Related article:

Dangerous drugs still prescribed to seniors

editor's opinion:

"Just as I thought...............the power of marketing"

Toronto physician under fire for spying on colleague

Three of the largest professional organizations representing plastic surgeons in Canada are filing formal complaints against a Toronto physician who hired a private investigator to spy on a colleague whom she suspected was causing a drop in her business.

The Ontario Society of Plastic Surgery, the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgery and the Canadian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery plan to ask Ontario's medical watchdog to investigate Dr. Behnaz Yazdanfar's decision to send an undercover female investigator to consult with plastic surgeon Dr. Sean Rice and secretly record the conversation.

As the Toronto Star reported last week, Yazdanfar used the recording as the basis of a $300,000 lawsuit against Rice, alleging the plastic surgeon slandered her reputation.

"Nobody has ever seen anything like this," says Dr. Michael Weinberg, a Toronto-area plastic surgeon and member of the three organizations filing complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

"We would like them to investigate the ethics of wiring an investigator to come in, ask questions, to pretend to be a patient and pose naked."

Weinberg says members of the three organizations decided to file the complaints Monday.

"The medical community is very upset by this," he said. "I can't imagine that asking a woman to expressly lie to a doctor and then to have their breast examined by a doctor and that person being sent by another doctor for the sole purpose of trapping them could be considered in any way ethical."

College officials would not comment.

"I can confirm we are investigating Dr. Yazdanfar, but I can't provide you with details of the investigation or how the matter came to our attention," said Kathryn Clarke, college spokesperson.

Yazdanfar has been at the centre of controversy since Krista Stryland, a 32-year-old real estate agent and mother, was pronounced dead in hospital Sept. 20 following a liposuction procedure at Yazdanfar's Toronto Cosmetic Clinic.

Read the full story in the Star (click here)