Author: UBC Abbotsford-Mission Family Practice Residency Program

May 5 marks the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S) in Canada, also known as Red Dress Day. The day is about building awareness and honouring those who were lost and their families.

1. Red Dress Day remembers missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people 

Remembering and acknowledging the injustices, the lack of follow-up, the lack of resolution. These families have lived with this for years, and in some cases for decades. And so having a Red Dress Day, and recognizing that these stories occur. That these families are still looking for answers, and that this can’t continue to happen. That is what we are doing today: trying to address a wrong that has taken place for many years and many decades.

2. Grassroots art sends a strong message as we mark red dress day

If you see a red dress hanging in a public space you are witnessing a true, grassroots movement, the REDress Project.

3. Kamloops commemorates Red Dress Day

As Canadians commemorate Red Dress Day in Canada, local government leaders are keen on addressing the national inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and the report’s 231 Calls for Justice. 

4. Red Dress Day ‘near and dear’ to Island woman 

Indigenous women and girls are five times more likely to experience violence than any other population in Canada, and Indigenous women make up 16 per cent of all female homicide victims and 11 per cent of missing women, despite representing just 4.3 per cent of the population, the organization says.

5. Cost of Doing Nothing : Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

For many years, government policy in regards to Indigenous people has been more reactive than preventative, and policy with regards to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMING) is no exception. 

6. Missing and murdered Indigenous women: Working with families to prepare for the National Inquiry/Femmes autochtones disparues ou assassinées : travailler avec les familles en prévision de l’Enquête nationale

Imagine that your daughter or sister or mother disappeared – and when you asked for help from police, your concerns weren’t taken seriously. Then, a week later her body is discovered. While the exact details of the story may vary, this is the current scenario for thousands of family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women. After years of advocacy and emotional turmoil, a national inquiry has finally been struck to find out what went wrong and how to fix it. 

Question  Can an artificial intelligence chatbot assistant, provide responses to patient questions that are of comparable quality and empathy to those written by physicians?

Findings  In this cross-sectional study of 195 randomly drawn patient questions from a social media forum, a team of licensed health care professionals compared physician’s and chatbot’s responses to patient’s questions asked publicly on a public social media forum. The chatbot responses were preferred over physician responses and rated significantly higher for both quality and empathy.

Meaning  These results suggest that artificial intelligence assistants may be able to aid in drafting responses to patient questions.

Learn more on Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses to Patient Questions Posted to a Public Social Media Forum via JAMA.

“Deep generative networks in recent years have reinforced the need for caution while consuming various modalities of digital information. One avenue of deepfake creation is aligned with injection and removal of tumors from medical scans. Failure to detect medical deepfakes can lead to large setbacks on hospital resources or even loss of life. This paper attempts to address the detection of such attacks with a structured case study. Specifically, we evaluate eight different machine learning algorithms, which include three conventional machine learning methods (Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Decision Tree) and five deep learning models (DenseNet121, DenseNet201, ResNet50, ResNet101, VGG19) in distinguishing between tampered and untampered images. For deep learning models, the five models are used for feature extraction, then each pre-trained model is fine-tuned. The findings of this work show near perfect accuracy in detecting instances of tumor injections and removals.”

More on Machine learning based medical image deepfake detection: A comparative study via Machine Learning with Applications.

“Canada’s health care system alone accounts for nearly 5% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, putting it ahead of the aviation industry.

In 2021, Canada joined more than 50 nations in committing to achieving low-carbon, sustainable health systems, but so far, much of the progress towards that goal has come from the voluntary efforts of individual physicians.

Myles Sergeant, a family physician in Hamilton, Ont., launched one such effort to cultivate partnerships on climate action across healthcare facilities, called PEACH.

He was inspired by a paper published in The Lancet Planetary Health which showed that more than 60% of the emissions generated by England’s National Health Service were related to the supply chain, rather than the delivery of care (24%), or travel by staff, patients, and visitors (10%).

Looking further into the issue, PEACH developed a checklist of the 20 most impactful actions hospitals could take to reduce their carbon footprint – in some cases, at low cost or savings. These include divesting foundation funds from fossil fuels, implementing Choosing Wisely programs to reduce waste, using reusable gowns and linens, adopting sustainable prescribing strategies, increasing plant-based food options for patients, and weighing sustainability in procurement contracts.”

How Canadian hospitals are decreasing carbon emissions via CMAJ.

Registration is now open for Okanagan Orchards on Saturday, May 27th at the Marriott Grand Okanagan Resort! This is the annual Family Practice Postgraduate faculty development and appreciation event.

We will have a morning of workshops, followed by some options for outdoor activities in the afternoon (wine touring, cycling and hiking), and will wrap up with an appreciation dinner in the evening. It’s a great opportunity for some networking and support, and we have a lot of fun too!

Please see details below (and attached) and register via the link provided.

Registration Here

A $300 travel reimbursement will be available after the event to eligible out-of-town preceptors needing to travel a distance of more than one hour.There are a limited number of guest rooms held at Marriott Grand Okanagan Resort in Kelowna.

Book your group rate for UBC Family Practice – Okanagan Orchards Faculty Development This event is open to all preceptors and clinical faculty from across our beautiful province.Feel free to share this event with colleagues at your site. Please let me know if you have any questions.We look forward to seeing you in May!

Larissa McLean, BA, MHA  Manager, Rural Education & InitiativesFaculty of Medicine | Department of Family Practice, Postgraduate Program The University of British Columbia  larissa.mclean@ubc.ca

“A new gene connected to hereditary breast cancer susceptibility has been identified in what researchers are calling a landmark study.

The discovery marks the first time in years that a new susceptibility gene has been pinpointed, allowing scientists to get one step closer to a full understanding of hereditary breast cancer.

‘We know that genetics play an important role in the likelihood of developing breast cancer, with hereditary breast cancer accounting for roughly ten per cent of all cases,’ Dr. Mohammad Reza Akbari, associate professor at the University of Toronto and the principal investigator of the study, said in a press release.

Around one in eight women in Canada will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, with the disease accounting for the highest amount of cancer-related deaths in women globally.”

Read more here on “For the first time in years, researchers have identified a new susceptibility gene for breast cancer: study” via CTV News.

Objective

This call for proposals announces the availability of funding to support projects that will promote further development of research in Indigenous Health Professions Education (IHPE) at The University of British Columbia (UBC). We are looking for researchers who are interested in exploring the education experiences of Indigenous Students in health professional programs during their admissions and training processes as well as those of Indigenous health professionals in practice.  That is, the Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES) wishes to engage with interested parties to further society’s knowledge of the role of education practices on the experiences and needs of Indigenous health professional learners and/or practitioners. 

Background

CHES is seeking to work with Indigenous UBC Students and/or Faculty to lead or co-lead research that addresses a scholarly issue in Indigenous education of relevance to the health professions.   Areas of research might focus on undergraduate or postgraduate education, interprofessional education, continuous professional development or the practice experience of Indigenous providers.  Examples of eligible topics include Indigenous student experiences with the curriculum (formal, informal, and hidden), student affairs/support, the pre-admission process, the admission process, the learning environment (cultural safety), and experiences of diversity, equity and inclusion. In addition, Indigenous faculty experiences navigating traditional systems or Indigenous practitioner experiences (e.g., Continuing Professional Development) will also be of interest and eligible. Funding is not intended to support program development, program evaluation, or program delivery.

For more information click here.

“This cake was 3D printed using seven simple ingredients blended into pastes. The result was a layered flavour that ‘hits you in different waves’, says Jonathan Blutinger at Columbia University in New York.

Blutinger and his colleagues grabbed seven ingredients from local grocery stores: graham crackers, peanut butter, strawberry jam, Nutella, banana puree, cherry syrup and frosting.

They put anything not already in a paste form into a food processor. That allowed a 3D printer to build up the cake by depositing the seven paste-like food ingredients in layers – a process resembling how people might squeeze out a tube of frosting.”

Footage: Jonathan Blutinger / Columbia Engineering

I wonder what the application of this technology could be in a hospital setting. More on “Understanding hospital staffs’ perspectives on what leads to quality food provision in Ontario hospitals” via J. Hum. Nutr. Diet.

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“Alpha-9’s radiopharmaceuticals are designed to treat a range of solid and hematologic cancers such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, leukemia and lymphoma. According to Dr. David Hirsch, chief executive officer of Alpha-9, the $75 million in Series B financing will enable the company to bring its first five treatments into clinical trials with patients over the next two years.

‘Thanks to the cutting-edge research at UBC, these radiotherapies have tremendous potential to address a wide range of cancers,’ says Dr. Hirsch. ‘In the coming years, we plan to progress multiple treatments into first-in-human clinical trials, harnessing the potential of radiopharmaceuticals to realize more effective treatments for people living with cancer.’”

Learn more on UBC biotech spin-off raises $75M to bring cancer treatments to patients via UBC Faculty of Medicine

The Office of Faculty Development and the Centre for Health Education Scholarship are pleased to co-facilitate the CAME Webinar Series at UBC. Designed to bring practical, evidence and experience-based advice to Canadian health educators, the webinars offer the opportunity to engage online with an expert and with colleagues in a live discussion on a key topic in health professions education. *Please note that while these sessions are free to attend, registration is required. See registration link below.

Focusing on goal co-construction in feedback and coaching
Presenter: Dr. Laura Farrell, University of British Columbia
Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Time: 12:00 to 1:00pm PDT
You need to be affiliated with UBC to register. Click here to register.

The CAME Webinar Series is an accredited activity. For more details, or to inquire about a webinar recording, please click here.