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Doctors and members of the BC Medical Association (Doctors Of BC) are asking what is happening at the helm of the BCMA? Some are saying they think the new CEO Allan Seckel is not good for the Association and a sign that bad things are happening to the Association.
Dr Carmen Eadie, Vancouver BC, Sep 4, 2022.
The youtube channel "Cracked Science" with Jonathan Jerry provides some good humour and scientific knowledge in ten minute episodes to bring you up to speed and get you thinking.
You hate those ads and pesky messages from Google, but you’ve become increasingly dependent on their services, right? Cloud storage, Gmail, Google Calendar and so on have just become so necessary that you feel you have to put up with the intrusions on your privacy and constant marketing of 'stuf', and being stalked by trackers everywhere you go? Well, there are alternatives, but one is growing rapidly and can do everything you want and need without those downsides: the eFoundation (Android) operating system.
Does the BC NDP's new legislation: Bill 36 - Health Professions and Occupations Act, introduced on October 19, 2022, set the stage for political interference in the licensing of physicians and other health professionals? Under sections 519 to 532 of the proposed Act, the Cabinet can make changes to the regulations including disciplinary measures, the composition of discipline panels and the oversight of complaints. In BC, will politics trump science when it comes to health professionals?
Having worked for 40 years as a family physician in BC, when I heard the media announcements recently: that on April 3, 2023 vaccine mandates will be lifted on BC public service government workers but not on health care workers until it can become a permanent condition of work in health care, and that we may see only combined vaccines in the fall; it struck me that it’s time we had a real chat. This can’t wait.
With tongue in cheek some might say it was about time we made more use of the tech we've got and now here we are all using telehealth. What does it mean? What does it look like? How does it work?
Book Review
News Items
Why I don’t believe Premier David Eby and the BC NDP have what it takes to fix the health care system
Public
Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - November 29, 2024
I don’t believe Premier David Eby and the BC NDP have what it takes to fix our health care system and government. He hasn’t earned my confidence and there are more reasons to doubt.
After the election, Premier David Eby said he heard the voters and has learned; they need to do better, and they will. Was he just repeating lines to sound good or did he really get the message? Just look at his first actions.
AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said
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On October 26, 2024, Associated Press published a story detailing findings of researchers that the OpenAI transcription tool Whisper, used by clinics and hospitals, is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers.
Experts said that such fabrications are problematic because Whisper is being used in a slew of industries worldwide to translate and transcribe interviews, generate text in popular consumer technologies and create subtitles for videos.
Why is our health care system and government broken?
Public
Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - October 6, 2024
I decided to write a series of posts covering different aspects of our health care system and government to help us apply our thinking to the problems and solutions. We need a change in our expectations of professional leaders, government leaders and how government works if we are to save our publicly funded health care system and our democratic rights.
Part 1. How health care administration over took funding for doctors.
Part 2. Early closure of debate erodes our parliamentary democracy.
Part 3. The importance of open dialog and informed consent.
Stay tuned for more to come.
The Tenth Nerve: a brain surgeon's stories of the patients who changed him
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Penguin Random House Canada has published this book and I hope you will enjoy it.
These are the stories of seven brave patients whose close encounters changed me into a better person and surgeon. It is a book about discoveries—both medical discoveries (including two new diseases) that I have provided my patients and personal discoveries that my patients have prompted in me. The scalpel can only go so deep, and technical skill can only take you so far. Real understanding of an illness requires listening and genuine care. The Tenth Nerve is a book about curiosity, the wonder of the human brain, and the courage of a few remarkable patients.
Delegation to Campbell River City Council on concerns arising from HPOA
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At the Campbell River City Council meeting on February 29, 2024, a delegation of physician Dr Anna Kindy and retired naturopath Dr Ingrid Pincott discussed the Health Professions and Occupation Act, HPOA, and the serious concerns it raises for health professionals, patients, and people living in and around Campbell River. Like most City Council meetings in BC it was streamed live and recorded and can be watched on YouTube. City councillors asked questions and expressed the view that these concerns are important and that they would like to ensure it is discussed when the UBCM meets this year, on September 16-20, 2024.
What loud bells will wake BC doctors and the public to the dangers of Bill 36, the HPOA?
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Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - November 6, 2023.
There is a sleeping sickness throughout our land. It has found its way into health care and affected all the doctors. It is not some esoteric thing happening in some small political arena or lawyers club. This impacts all of BC and all of us: the ability of doctors to practice medicine the way they were taught and trained, according to their conscience and oath for the benefit of patients.
The significance of Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations Act, is profound and the association, Doctors of BC, should be ringing alarm bells. Instead, they are subduing the importance of it, convincing all doctors to move on to the regulations, like lemmings over the cliff. Not only is this unhelpful to doctors, it is actually dangerous for doctors with their purpose and professional obligations to deliver health care to patients. Bells need to ring everywhere, and the association should be dissolved.
Documentary: Waiting To Die - Canada's Health Care Crisis
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A new one hour documentary by Aaron Gunn, "Waiting To Die - Canada's Health Care Crisis" was released yesterday (August 14, 2023) and in the first day it had more than 23,000 views and more than 700 comments from people sharing their own experiences and thoughts.
Times-Colonist OpEd: Dix needs to listen to healthcare providers
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Please read the OpEd by a BC family doctor that while Health Minister Adrian Dix uses findings of the Cayton report to defend the rapid introduction of Bill 36, the HPOA, he refuses to comment on the contradictory content in the report and snubs the issues raised by the Doctors of BC.
More than 400 doctors attend Bill 36 HPOA Webinar by Doctors of BC
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More than a year has passed and the association Doctors Of BC still has not made the recording of the webinar on Bill36/HPOA available for members to view. Why not?
Dr. Zafar Essak, MD - Vancouver, BC - May 3, 2023.
How important is Bill 36, the new Health Professions and Occupations Act, to doctors, nurses, all health care professionals, and patients? Important enough that more than 400 doctors attended the Doctors of BC Townhall Webinar on Tuesday April 25, 2023 at 6:30 pm. This, in the middle of the week, while doctors are trying to finish work or balancing family and meal time. When was the last time you saw 400 doctors attend a meeting? We haven’t seen a number like that at the DOBC AGM for decades.
It was a very informative webinar organized by DOBC with over 100 questions from doctors to a panel of three Ministry of Health staff, as architects of Bill 36, followed by a panel of the DOBC: President, Dr. Josh Greggain; new CEO, Anthony Knight; staff lawyer, Deborah Viccars; and moderated by Marisa Adair, Director of Communications.
