For some reason I can’t quite understand, there have recently been a number of very serious privacy breaches involving health care professionals being caught snooping into patient personal health records. Surprisingly, some of these incidences have involved fairly high profile individuals (such as was the case concerning former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford)1, and some have […]
By now you have probably heard about the individuals who thought it would be “hilarious” and “amazing” to direct an extremely obscene comment at a CityNews reporter covering a TFC game. Their behaviour was undeniably shameful and disgraceful – and the reporter (good on her) called them on it.But what is truly fascinating about this […]
I think we can all agree that we’ve had to work pretty hard to become RRTs. First, there were three years of schooling (only two for oldsters like me – but still), the HPTC exam, and then years and years of ongoing professional development. But did you know that each year approximately 35 RRTs have […]
While working as a staff RT a number of years ago, a ward clerk referred to me as ‘support staff’. I think she was joking – at least I hope she was – but I was still offended. “I’m not support staff,” I countered. “I’m a health care professional!” We laughed about it at the […]
A health care professional working in a large hospital in the U.S. was fired last year for reposting a picture on Instagram® of an empty trauma room. The photo, which was taken by a colleague, included the caption “man vs. 6 train” and depicted a room recently used to treat a patient who had been […]
If you are like me, the events that took place in Paris the other week have left you shocked, angered, and – ultimately – deeply saddened by the senselessness of it all. I don’t profess to understand the many complex factors that result in one group of people attacking another, and that isn’t even really […]
It’s often very challenging for any of us to find the time or energy to do much more than what simply needs to be done in a given day. There seems to be more and more demands being placed on all of us, with so many competing priorities clamouring for our attention. Yet we know […]
Advances in computerized technology provide health care professionals with enhanced capability to monitor a wide variety of patient conditions and, hopefully, prevent adverse events. However, with that comes a multitude of alerts, alarms and – in the case of ventilators and cardiac monitors – a cacophony of noise and flashing lights. This has led to […]
Someone told me the other day that: “There is no point in me taking any extra courses or paying for a conference. I know all I need to in order to do my job. There is nothing more I need to learn.” I didn’t really know how to respond to that statement. Personally, I can’t […]
Earlier this summer there were several stories that appeared in the news about physicians who allegedly refused to provide certain non-emergency treatments (e.g., artificial contraception) on religious or moral grounds[1]. Consequently, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) undertook a review of its Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code policy and invited the […]
