Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission

“It’s not clear exactly why outdoor excursions have such a positive mental effect. Yet, in a 2015 study, researchers compared the brain activity of healthy people after they walked for 90 minutes in either a natural setting or an urban one. They found that those who did a nature walk had lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is active during rumination — defined as repetitive thoughts that focus on negative emotions.
…
‘Anything from 20 to 30 minutes, three days a week, to regular three-day weekends in the woods is helpful,’ says Dr. Strauss. ‘The point is to make your interactions a part of your normal lifestyle.'”

Read more on Get Back to Nature: Research Suggests That Mood Disorders Can Be Lifted by Spending More Time Outdoors (July 2018) via Harvard’s Men’s Health Watch.

Images of Cheakamus Centre (2019) via Jacqueline Ashby.

#GetBackToNature #EnjoyTheOutdoors

Great interactive piece on how our dietary habits impact our environment! Their four key takeaways:

“Modern agriculture inevitably contributes to climate change, but some foods have a bigger impact than others. Beef, lamb and cheese tend to do the most climate damage. Pork, chicken, and eggs are in the middle. Plants of all kinds typically have the lowest impact.

What you eat matters a lot more than whether it’s local or organic, or what kind of bag you use to carry it home from the store.

You don’t have to give up meat altogether to make a difference. Even smaller shifts, like eating less meat and more plants, or switching from beef to chicken, can reduce your climate footprint.

One simple way to cut your food-related emissions is to waste less. Buying what you need and actually eating it–instead of tossing it out—means that the energy used to produce your food has been spent efficiently.”

Access Canada’s Food Guide for healthy recipes and learn more about how to transform the hospital meal for sustainability.

#FoodAndClimateChange

Always remember, your focus determines your reality.

Qui-Gon Jinn

From our Site to yours! #MayThe4thBeWithYou

And to our UBC Residents taking the #LMCCPartDeux

You got this!

Jacqueline

CHES recently distributed a collection of medical education article abstracts to members! “We thank Dr. Gisèle Bourgeois-Law who created these summaries for the education community at the Island Medical Program. While these articles have a medical education focus, we are using this opportunity to explore the value of such an initiative to our larger CHES community. Article themes include topics such as: feedback and mindfulness, those by local/BC educators, those relevant to a distributed medical program, and those with new ideas. Our aim is to include a variety of quantitative and qualitative research articles, review articles, and concept articles, some of which contain an interesting editorial or commentary. This summary is not meant to be comprehensive, nor to include everything of potential interest.

If you would like to nominate an article for future inclusion or have any questions, please email us at ches.communications@ubc.ca.”

#UBC #CHES #MedicalEducation

Given the health risks associated with consuming your placenta, and the absence of detectable benefits, we strongly recommend women do not, and instead look to other mental wellness resources.

Dr. Jehannine Austin, Professor in UBC Faculty of Medicine

“The study, published online today in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, is the largest so far to look at the effects of eating one’s placenta—a practice known as placentophagy. Researchers used data from a 10-year genetic study involving 138 women with a history of mood disorders and compared data on outcomes between those who had eaten their placenta and those who had not.
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Eating one’s placenta following childbirth is a growing trend, with many celebrities claiming that the practice provided them with health benefits, including preventing postpartum depression. However, previous studies have shown that consuming human placenta poses risks for mothers and their babies, including viral and bacterial infections.
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This study’s data provides no support for the idea that postpartum placentophagy improves mood, energy, lactation, or plasma vitamin B₁₂ levels in women with a history of mood disorders.”

#UBCFacultyOfMedicine #Placentophagy

Cue the Jeopardy theme song.

“What is….”

Click here to answer.

#TheLancet #PictureQuiz

Today we celebrate National Physicians’ Day! Check out Doctors of BC twitter feed as they highlight some of the physicians making a difference in British Columbia! A big thank you to all our UBC community-based and hospital-based clinical educators and our wonderful UBC residents!

#NationalPhysiciansDay #DoctorsOfBC

These 3D printing personalized, waterproof, removable, lightweight casts designed by CastPrint are breaking the mold. Learn more on the future of personalized healthcare here.

#InnovationByDesign #MadeMeLook

The inaugural issue of The #LancetDigitalHealth is now live! Access the journal here.

Featuring an Editorial plus three research articles on closed-loop insulin delivery for type 1 #diabetes, a mobile phone intervention vs standard care adherence support after second-line antiretroviral therapy failure for #HIV, and artificial intelligence using deep learning to screen for referable and vision-threatening #diabetic retinopathy in Africa. All content is #openaccess. #AI #digitalhealth #medicaldevices #telemedicine #CyberSecurity #digitalmedicine