Conditions

In a February 2021 Facebook Live presentation sponsored by Seattle Children’s Hospital, Jill Escher, the president of the National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA), called for splitting the autism spectrum. In some individuals, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) presents as a serious developmental disability affecting communication, learning, motivation, and all aspects of daily living. These individuals require 24/7 level care. Others on the spectrum have mild differences in ...

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I recently returned from Northwest Territories, where I’d been working as a physician for six months. Now, back in Nova Scotia, I’m reflecting on what it’s been like to have worked in areas of Canada with relatively few cases of COVID-19.

A large part of my work is hospital medicine. As the name implies, a hospitalist is a doctor who cares for patients admitted to the hospital. Often, we work ...

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There is light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic tunnel, but public trust in national and global public health institutions is at an all-time low. What happens if folks don’t want to travel to the light? As the pandemic drags on, the banality of persistent distancing measures and continued calls for social distancing are falling on deaf ears. Cases and fatalities continue to set records. In an attempt to regain ...

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As the challenges to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine get harder and not easier, and as the pressure for schools to open their doors for in-person learning, as long as teachers will get vaccinated, rises, the question remains: What about those who choose not to? In the midst of so many individuals clamoring to get vaccinated, there remain many who will not get vaccinated. Not this week, not next ...

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As a Latina physician on the frontlines of COVID-19, it feels like a race against time to get as many vaccines as possible to the communities of color that are more likely to be infected, hospitalized, and die from the virus. A lot of effort right now is focused on the logistics of managing vaccines that need to be manufactured, stored, allocated, ...

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Part of your job as a parent is to teach your children, and there's no way for a child to learn anything without making a few mistakes. Actually, a lot of mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes can be infuriating. They might be self-destructive mistakes. They might be mistakes that can cause harm to their siblings or classmates. They might be mistakes that happen over and over again. They might ...

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I opened the exam room door and hit something. Peeking around the door, I saw an elderly woman wearing a pink sequined hat who was perched in a motorized scooter parked awkwardly in front of the door.  I slinked around her to my stool and sat down as I introduced myself. I was running behind, but for some reason, I simply said, “tell me about yourself.” The woman looked directly at ...

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Last month, while the world was distracted by political turmoil and the pandemic’s roaring second wave, a very significant proclamation came and went with little fanfare. The United Nations General Assembly launched 2020-2030 as the Decade of Healthy Ageing, calling for a decade of concerted global action to extend the health and well-being horizons of the world’s one billion people over the age of ...

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The emergency department is fast-paced. Full of chaos. Incredible suffering. Frustration. Disappointment. Screams, tears, smiles. Reassurance. Good news. Bad news. Diagnoses. Failure to find a diagnosis. Getting a last-minute cardiac arrest coming in at 650 a.m., ten minutes before the end of your 12-hour, overnight shift – you have the energy and wherewithal to do the task, but to process the life that was lost? To truly realize the dead ...

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