Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission

“Scientists at the University of British Columbia are getting a rare glimpse into the underwater behaviour of northern and southern resident killer whales off the B.C. coast, with the help of aerial drones. The unique footage, filmed in collaboration with the Hakai Institute, will help researchers determine if endangered southern residents are getting enough of their preferred prey, Chinook salmon, to meet their nutritional needs. The insights will inform conservation and recovery efforts for the population that has dwindled to under 75 individuals. The footage in this video shows pods of northern resident killer whales, filmed in the Johnstone Strait off the north east coast of Vancouver Island, and off Calvert Island, on B.C.’s central coast.”

Learn more on Aerial drones offer new perspective on resident killer whale behaviour via UBC.

#ScienceHealthTechnology #WeShareThisSpace #KnowYourNeighbours #ClimateChange

Reminder that our Peer Observation Project Dinner is tonight! We’d like to begin this second phase with a focus on Shared Goals & Action Planning. Our agenda is to share the summary of the team’s concerns, challenges, and ideas that were raised during our first gathering. We’ll also collect your feedback on the observation template that was forwarded and determine how we can modify it to best address your needs. Then we’ll learn how you’d like to partner up. (Please see Peer Observation Template & Role Description)

Peer Observation Project Phase II: Shared Goals & Action Planning Gathering
Where: In the comfort of your home! Tele/videoconference. We’ll send you the link and instructions via email.
Time: 19:00 – 19:45
Date: November 5, 2019

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at jacqueline.ashby@ubc.ca

We look forward to connecting with you soon!

Just arrived? Want to learn more about this initiative? Visit us here!

Location: Mission Division of Family Practice
Facilitator: Jacqueline Ashby, Ed.D.
Please RSVP for breakfast catering.

Wow! This year’s FMF in Vancouver was such a blast. Thank you to all our family docs that posed and chatted with me. Congratulations to Dr. Jennafer Wilson who won the CFPC Indigenous Resident Leadership Award and Dr. Jeff Kornelsen who recently received the BCCCFP Exceptional Teacher Honor. It was wonderful to reconnect with our faculty and especially former Residents Drs. Hsu and Wright. We miss you both.

With all of us attending so many different sessions, I’d like to ask the Residents and Preceptors to forward me 3-5 educational pearls that you gathered over the past 4 days and I’ll compile your thoughts and share them with the team.

Big hug!

Jacqueline

“The global market for Crispr gene-editing products as medicine, to develop new crops (such as spicy tomatoes or long-life mushrooms) and other uses is predicted to be $5.3bn by 2025. Continued advances in Crispr precision and ease of use, like the just reported prime editing approach, are likely to make that number even higher. Crispr gene editing has the potential to treat a myriad of monogenic diseases from sickle cell anaemia to muscular dystrophy and cancer. Parents may one day be able to genetically customise their children’s health, physical features and abilities. Crispr will be the genetic scissors that tailor the human gene pool.”

More on Gene editing like Crispr is too important to be left to scientists alone via The Guardian.

“Probably the best advice I received was from my PhD advisor. He simply stressed that you should always do quality work and keep in mind that society is what makes it possible for us to have all this fun in the lab. At some point, you need to think about how you can repay that debt.” Dr. Jim Allison

More on Meet the Carousing, Harmonica-Playing Texan Who Won a Nobel for his Cancer Breakthrough via Wired.

#JimAllison #Immunotherapy #Breakthrough

CHES recently distributed a collection of medical education article abstracts to members! “We thank Dr. Gisèle Bourgeois-Law who has 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.

“Architecture and engineering firm Leo A Daly has proposed building ‘drone-powered’ hospitals in hurricane-prone areas, which could continue operating even when roads are closed or destroyed.

Egea points out that, with roads made unusable by the hurricane, staff, family members and suppliers couldn’t always reach hospitals, in some cases leaving patients cut off from care, medication, food and air conditioning.

‘When barges finally began entering the port with supplies, there were still cases where they were unable to get those supplies to those who needed it, including the elderly and critical patients who can’t move from those facilities,’ he said.

‘I thought, why couldn’t we bypass all that and have whatever is in the barges taken directly to the hospitals, and directly to patients?'”

More on Drone-equipped hospitals could be resilient to disasters via dezeen.

#Innovation #Drone #Hospitals

 “All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.” ― James Clear

“One of the issues for me around abortion is that no one discusses it. The lack of understanding about the people who do abortions and the patients who get abortions is a problem as well as the lack of understanding about how many women get abortions and how common it is. Anything that can help dispel myths, that can bring abortion to the dinner table conversation, that can bring abortion topics into normal day-to-day life is important.”  Dr. Deborah Oyer, Family Medicine Physician

Additional resources on the topic:
Our Bodies Our Doctors (2019) documentary on the experience of family physicians, OBGYNs, and healthcare professionals who provide safe abortion care.
Where do abortion rights in Canada stand today? via CBC News
Abortion barriers in Canada are back in spotlight following passage of abortion bans in U.S. (2019) via CBC
Healthlink BC: Abortion
Medical Students for Choice
A Broad Vision for Reproductive Justice (2017) via Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights