Family Medicine in the COVID-19 Global Pandemic
A Podcast Partnership Between the Besrour Centre and Canadian Family Physician
Using the Besrour Centre’s network of international partners, Dr. Christine Gibson interviews family physicians around the world who are helping to manage this pandemic, finding the common thread of humanity between those on each side of the mask.
These stories are introduced by Dr. Nick Pimlott, Scientific Editor of Canadian Family Physician.
Dr. Gibson is a family physician in Calgary, Alberta and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Dr. Gibson is an international consultant for family medicine development and capacity building. Dr. Gibson is the Co-Lead of the Narrative Working Group of the Besrour Center at the College of Family Physicians of Canada. As Dr. Gibson writes:
“This is a timely opportunity to learn from our global partners on the front line of the Covid outbreak. Family physicians worldwide are stepping up to help their communities battle this illness as best we can. People are yearning for stories, whether for professional or personal reasons. Stories of hope and of communities in grief, stories of authentic experiences that we can all learn from and through. This is a unique experience in the history of humanity – a pandemic that is truly shared worldwide, revealing our interconnectivity in heroic and tragic ways. Now is the time for collective healing.”
We hope listeners find these stories compelling and healing.
This podcast was recorded on June 1st, 2020.
Dr. Gibson's website: www.christinegibson.net
Meseret Zerihun is one of the first cohorts of residents to graduate as a family physician in her country of Ethiopia. She was enrolled in the first family medicine training program established in Ethiopia in 2013 at Addis Ababa University. She is now working as an assistant professor at Addis Ababa University, where she is involved in teaching, mentoring, educating, and supervising residents. She has demonstrated positive leadership skills and determination, which enabled her to be appointed as the Program Director and department head of the family medicine program at Addis Ababa University. Meseret has also been involved in delivering health care to underprivileged communities and is passionate about mentoring and encouraging future female leaders. and hopes to play a vital role in strengthening the primary care system in her country. She would like to pursue her PHD in global health and implementation science.
Read Dr. Gibson's accompanying blog post at https://www.cfp.ca/blog
In this episode of the podcast, Dr Sarah Fraser interviews Dr Shayna Watson about CBT for insomnia. They delve into the ins and outs of a non-pharmacologic approach to insomnia management, including the things you can do to help patients in your busy family medicine clinic.
Join Dr. Nick Pimlott and Dr. Sarah Fraser as they interview Dr. Iona Heath, the 2023 Dr. Ian McWhinney Lecturer at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University.
Dr. Heath’s McWhinney Lecture was published in the December 2023 issue of the journal. They discuss Dr. Heath’s discovery of Ian McWhinney’s “Quality of Mind” – the title of her lecture – when she first read his Textbook of Family Medicine as a young general practitioner, his lifelong influence on her thinking and practice, and how his ideas about the essential values of family medicine can help guide the profession through one of most challenging periods in its recent history.
Dr. Heath’s September 20th, 2023 Dr. Ian McWhinney Lecture can accessed here:
https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/familymedicine/about_us/dr_ian_mcwhinney_lecture_series/2023.html
The published lecture can be accessed here:
Join Dr Nick Pimlott for this episode of the CFP Podcast as he interviews Alex Crawley and Amy Soubolsky from the Rx Files Academic Detailing Program in Saskatchewan about the management of difficult-to-treat depression in primary care. The interview is based on an article published in the November issue of the journal entitled “Thoughtful prescribing for difficult to treat depression”. Mr. Crawley and Ms. Soubolsky are co-authors of the article with their colleague Jessica Visentin. Together they discuss a case-based careful step wise approach to this challenging area of clinical practice.
Join Drs Nick Pimlott and Sarah Fraser as they co-host this CFP podcast on the new PEER Simplified Lipid Guideline: 2023 Update. They interview Dr Mike Kolber, lead author on the paper, which is published in October’s issue of the journal. They discuss the process of how he and his team developed these guidelines, and they take a deep dive into the evidence behind dyslipidemia screening, prevention, and treatment.
Read the guidelines in English: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/10/675.
Access the guidelines in French: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/10/e189.
Check out the systematic review that informed the guidelines: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/10/701.
Join Dr Sarah Fraser in this podcast with 4th year medical student Nusha Ramsoondar and Dr Alex Anawati. They discuss their recent publications in September’s issue of CFP, on the themes of social accountability and anti-racism in medicine.
You can find the original publications here:
https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/9/594
https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/9/630
Nusha Ramsoondar is a 4th year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s Thunder Bay campus. She hopes to practice in Northern Ontario.
Alex Anawati is a primary care and emergency room physician advancing social accountability as an equity-oriented health policy strategy. He is co-lead for the SAFE for Health Institutions Project at the Dr Gilles Arcand Centre for Health Equity.
Providing preventive care can be time consuming, and potential benefits have to be weighed against risks and costs. Dr Nick Pimlott interviews Drs Roland Grad, Donna Reynolds, and Guylène Thériault about their work on a new guideline on screening for fragility fractures and how the concept of “time needed to treat” is gaining importance in guideline development.
Read their Prevention in Practice review article in the August 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician in English (https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/8/537) or French (https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/8/e165).
Access the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care’s Fragility Fracture Decision Aid at: https://frax.canadiantaskforce.ca/.
In this Third Rail edition of the podcast Dr. Sarah Fraser has a conversation with Dr. Shane Neilson about mental illness in physicians as well as Dr. Neilson's new book Saving: A Doctor's Struggle to Help His Children.
Shane Neilson is a physician, poet, and critic from New Brunswick, now practising in Guelph, Ontario. He published Saving: A Doctor's Struggle to Help His Children, a memoir about intergenerational disability in conversation with professional medical practice, with Great Plains Publishing in 2023. Shane completed his Ph.D at McMaster where his dissertation on the representations of chronic pain in Canadian literature received the Governor-General's Gold Medal. An adjunct professor of family medicine at the Waterloo Regional Campus of McMaster University, Shane's academic interest concerns disability, non-neurotypicality, and chronic illness in the profession of medicine.
The importance of language to the care of 2SLGBTQ+ patients, the discrimination that 2SLGBTQ+ health care professionals face, and the current political climate shape part 2 of this conversation that Dr Sarah Fraser hosts with Drs Robyn Moxley, Andrew Organek, and Thea Weisdorf.
These podcast guests and Toronto-based family doctors contributed the following articles to the June 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician:
The care of 2SLGBTQ+ patients is a natural fit for family practices, yet many family doctors fear they lack relevant skills and instead refer patients to other providers. Dr Sarah Fraser discusses such barriers to care and how family physicians can create safe spaces for 2SLGBTQ+ patients with Drs Robyn Moxley, Andrew Organek, and Thea Weisdorf.
Symptoms drive patients to seek primary care, but the fact that up to half never lead to a diagnosis is a challenge; it’s also an opportunity to refresh how symptoms are viewed in family medicine. Dr Nick Pimlott hosts a discussion with Dr Thomas Freeman and Dr Moira Stewart about the implications of paying greater attention to symptoms for patient care, research, and teaching.
Check out their research on abdominal pain symptoms in the May 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/5/341. Their informative essay on studying symptoms in family practice appeared in the March 2020 issue: https://www.cfp.ca/content/66/3/218.
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