Patient-First Language

Who would have thought that it might be good to talk about yourself in the third person? As if you weren’t you, but him? As if you weren’t actually there, and anyway, you didn’t want yourself to find out you were talking about him in case it seemed like, well, gossip? I mean, only royalty, or the personality-disordered, are able to talk like that without somebody phoning the police.

In the summer of 2017, I was the treating emergency physician involved in the care of two Inuit children from Nunavik who were transferred to the Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) by Évacuations aéromédicales du Québec (ÉVAQ), the provincially run medical evacuation airlift service. The first child was a preschooler who fell off a moving all-terrain vehicle earlier that morning and was transferred to us with a suspicion of injuries to the abdomen and head.

We’ve been getting by with virtual care, and during the pandemic, it may be the best option possible given the many constraints we are facing. But we need to recognize and value the relational effort that makes virtual care function. Ultimately, family medicine is built on relationships. It's relationships, in the clinic and in our communities that will get us through this pandemic.

Proposed legislation to amend Canada’s law on medical assistance in dying goes against the nature of medicine, which is to heal patients and alleviate suffering, says Dr. Ramona Coelho, a family physician in London, Ont. Dr. Coelho is among a group of physicians who wrote an open letter opposing Bill C-7. More than 800 Canadian doctors have now signed the letter.

The C4T program is currently working on multiple projects, involving almost every pediatric hospital in the country. Dr. Kelly is leading several of these projects, hoping to gather specific information on how pediatricians should judge dosages and format cannabis for treatment of chronic headaches in children.

The level of amputations has risen for diabetics during the pandemic, he said, as people have been afraid to seek treatment even with telltale trouble signs like numbness in limbs.