Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission

Nearly all Canadians saw COVID-19 misinformation online

During the pandemic, nine in ten Canadians (90%) used online sources to find information about COVID-19. The three main sources were online newspapers or news sites (63%), social media posts from news organizations or magazines (35%), and social media posts from other users or influencers (30%).

During the first few months of this health crisis, 96% of Canadians who used the Internet to find information saw COVID-19 information that they suspected was misleading, false or inaccurate. In addition, regardless of gender, nearly two in five Canadians (40%) reported believing that the information they saw related to COVID-19 was true, then later realized that it was not.

Only one in five Canadians always checked the accuracy of online COVID-19 information

The survey found that many Canadians were not in a regular habit of checking the accuracy of information they found online, with only 21% reporting they always check the accuracy and 37% saying they often check. However roughly 36% of Canadians reported that they only sometimes (24%) or rarely (12%) checked the accuracy of COVID-19 information they found online, which facilitates the sharing of potentially misleading, false or inaccurate information.

Half of Canadians shared COVID-19 information they found online without knowing whether it was accurate

During the first few months of the pandemic, just over half of all Canadians (53%) had shared COVID-19 information they found online without knowing if it was accurate (22% always, often or sometimes shared, and 31% rarely shared), while the other half (47%) never shared unverified information.  Information-sharing habits did not vary by gender, but differences were observed depending on the age group and education level of respondents.

More on Misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic via Statistics Canada.

Stop the spread of misinformation by determining its accuracy prior to sharing it with others.
#COVID19 #WearAMask #GetVaccinated

“Globally, there are limited data on COVID-19 in pregnancy to inform recommendations for pregnant women and their care providers. This national surveillance project serves to better our understanding of the epidemiology and outcomes associated with COVID-19 in pregnancy and to thereby provide critical data to inform recommendations for pregnant women and their infants. A national approach, with regional leadership across Canada, is in progress with provincial/territorial data collection being combined for a national dataset of cases of COVID-19 in pregnancy. This project also lays the foundation for additional COVID-19 research through the establishment of a biospecimen repository from COVID-19 affected mother-infant pairs.”

More on Canadian Surveillance of COVID-19 in Pregnancy: Epidemiology, Maternal and Infant Outcomes via UBC Faculty of Medicine Reproductive Infectious Diseases Program.

B.C. health officials announced 564 new cases of COVID-19 and four more deaths on Thursday as the number of variants of concern continues to climb.

Of the new cases, 46 were identified as variants, bringing B.C.’s total to 246. 

A total of 248 people are in hospital, 63 of whom are in intensive care. There are currently 4,743 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C. and 1,376 people have died of the disease since the pandemic began.

More on COVID-19 variants on the rise, as B.C. records 564 new cases and 4 more deaths via CBC.

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

~ Ted Hughes

Health professions education has always been concerned with creating health professionals for the future. However, the nature of professional work is rapidly changing. This leads to questions about how well health professions education can “future proof” current and next generation professionals. Some of the pressures professionals face are intensifications of existing tensions that have always defined the professions and their work. Other tensions are new, reflecting shifts in societal expectations, technological innovations, and greater scrutiny of professional work. Drawing on theories from the sociology of the professions, the sociology of work, and the sociology of expertise, I will use examples from the domains of (1) patient safety and quality improvement and (2) patient engagement to explore these tensions and their implications. Ultimately, I will argue that if educators wish to preserve – and enrich – the contributions of the professions to health and healthcare, we require more complex understandings of professional work and continuous professional learning.

Learn more here.

Starting off this Monday morning with another round of Lancet Picture Quiz!
Cue “Für Elise” (or Bagatelle No. 25 in a minor) by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed live on piano by Marnie Laird for Brooklyn Classical:

“What is….”

Click here to answer.

#TheLancet #PictureQuiz 

Join the Healthy Conversation Series: A Celebration of Black History Month via The Ottawa Hospital.

“Despite isolation measures, the number of affected patients is growing daily: as of June 12th, over 7.5 million cases have been confirmed worldwide, with more than 420,000 global deaths. Over 3.5 million patients have recovered from COVID-19; although this number is increasing by the day, great attention should be directed towards the possible long-term outcomes of the disease. Despite being a trivial matter for patients in intensive care units (ICUs), erectile dysfunction (ED) is a likely consequence of COVID-19 for survivors, and considering the high transmissibility of the infection and the higher contagion rates among elderly men, a worrying phenomenon for a large part of affected patients.”

Learn more on Addressing male sexual and reproductive health in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak via Journal of Endocrinological Investigation.

Greetings Residents!

Hope you are well. In my recent conversation with Dr. Wickham (Orthopaedics Rotation Lead), he highly recommended reading Essentials of Musculoskeletal Care (AAOS) and to focus covering the shoulder, hip, and knee. You can access this book for free through our UBC Library using your UBC CWL account. The latest ebook edition is 2018. Author: AAOS Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. ISBN: 1-284-16685-6, 978-1-284-16685-9.

Warm regards,

Jacqueline