Casebook of a Community Internist
Blogs
- 5/12/2025
What is geriatrics? An internist's perspective
Geriatricians see patients with complex conditions of aging, like osteoporosis, dementia, falls, stroke and mobility issues. As the tsunami of greying washes over Canada, these doctors are highly prized, and in short supply. - 4/3/2025
Lists of 10
Ten is an interesting number. It got me to think, what questions would I like answered about medicine? After a long career dealing with medical quandaries, I thought I’d list 10. - 3/21/2025
Can we improve system functionality by reducing student debt and restructuring training?
Back in my day, in the U.K., I got a government grant, and my tuition fees were paid. Nowadays the debt load of new grads is hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on province. Let’s look at solutions. - 3/10/2025
Medical truth
We are living in times when ‘the truth’ is more important than ever. Truth telling is a cornerstone of trust, upon which our profession depends. - 1/27/2025
Feedback
What Canadian healthcare needs is feedback from doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, data managers, economists and patients (and their families). - 12/9/2024
Death and dying: what do young doctors need to know?
Dr. Hector Baillie writes how nowadays, the role of the doctor has become further removed from one-on-one compassionate care. - 11/7/2024
Walking in other people’s shoes: a thought experiment
Complexity is the reason the healthcare system is collapsing: patients are older, on more drugs, with high expectations, and not enough beds. - 10/29/2024
Young and old
I’d like to share with you the stories of two patients: the oldest and the youngest patients I have seen with a presentation of cardiac dysfunction. - 10/10/2024
Border zones: Liminal space in medicine and beyond
Overlap areas can prove to be some of the most dynamic. - 8/13/2024
Data: Musings on its importance in medicine
Four letters, two of them repeated. Not a big word. But one on which businesses are built and run by. And what is the most complicated business on the planet Earth? Medicine. - 8/6/2024
Pushing pills and curing ills
How long have physicians been pushing remedies for asymptomatic disease? - 7/22/2024
Context: an integral tool for educating patients
‘Well Bill, your master spark plug is getting rusty,’ I said to a 72-year-old retired mechanical engineer.