CFP Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Have you ever heard of graphic medicine? Have you wondered what is the difference between a comic and a cartoon? And how is this related to your work in the clinic? In this episode of the CFP podcast, Drs Nick Pimlott and Sarah Fraser interview author Susan MacLeod about all things graphic medicine. We dive into Susan’s professional experiences in government health communications and her transition into becoming an internationally acclaimed author. She then defines graphic medicine, gives us an overview of why it’s important, and how it relates to compassion and burnout in the health care system. Finally, Susan walks Nick and Sarah through a brief graphic medicine exercise-do try this at home!

https://www.graphicmedicine.org/book-series/graphic-medicine-manifesto/

https://conundrumpress.com/product/dying-for-attention/

In this episode of the CFP Podcast, join Deputy Editor Dr Sarah Fraser and Editor Dr Nick Pimlott in a wide-ranging discussion about health data, health informatics and digital health with Dr Rashaad Bhyat, a family physician and Senior Clinical Leader at the Centre for Clinical Innovation in Digital Health, a branch of Canada Health Infoway.

Join Dr Sarah Fraser in this podcast with 4th year medical student Nusha Ramsoondar and Dr Alex Anawati. They discuss their recent publications in September’s issue of CFP, on the themes of social accountability and anti-racism in medicine.

You can find the original publications here:

https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/9/594

https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/9/630

Nusha Ramsoondar is a 4th year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s Thunder Bay campus. She hopes to practice in Northern Ontario.

Alex Anawati is a primary care and emergency room physician advancing social accountability as an equity-oriented health policy strategy. He is co-lead for the SAFE for Health Institutions Project at the Dr Gilles Arcand Centre for Health Equity. 

Providing preventive care can be time consuming, and potential benefits have to be weighed against risks and costs. Dr Nick Pimlott interviews Drs Roland Grad, Donna Reynolds, and Guylène Thériault about their work on a new guideline on screening for fragility fractures and how the concept of “time needed to treat” is gaining importance in guideline development.

Read their Prevention in Practice review article in the August 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician in English (https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/8/537) or French (https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/8/e165).
Access the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care’s Fragility Fracture Decision Aid at: https://frax.canadiantaskforce.ca/.

In this Third Rail edition of the podcast Dr. Sarah Fraser has a conversation with Dr. Shane Neilson about mental illness in physicians as well as Dr. Neilson's new book Saving: A Doctor's Struggle to Help His Children.

Shane Neilson is a physician, poet, and critic from New Brunswick, now practising in Guelph, Ontario. He published Saving: A Doctor's Struggle to Help His Children, a memoir about intergenerational disability in conversation with professional medical practice, with Great Plains Publishing in 2023. Shane completed his Ph.D at McMaster where his dissertation on the representations of chronic pain in Canadian literature received the Governor-General's Gold Medal. An adjunct professor of family medicine at the Waterloo Regional Campus of McMaster University, Shane's academic interest concerns disability, non-neurotypicality, and chronic illness in the profession of medicine.  

The importance of language to the care of 2SLGBTQ+ patients, the discrimination that 2SLGBTQ+ health care professionals face, and the current political climate shape part 2 of this conversation that Dr Sarah Fraser hosts with Drs Robyn Moxley, Andrew Organek, and Thea Weisdorf.

 These podcast guests and Toronto-based family doctors contributed the following articles to the June 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician:

• “Supporting 2SLGBTQ+ patients in your practice”: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/6/377
• « Soutenir les patients 2SLGBTQ+ dans votre pratique »: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/6/379
• “Affirming pregnancy care for transgender and gender-diverse patients”: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/6/407
• “Should all family physicians provide gender-affirming primary care?”: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/6/415

The care of 2SLGBTQ+ patients is a natural fit for family practices, yet many family doctors fear they lack relevant skills and instead refer patients to other providers. Dr Sarah Fraser discusses such barriers to care and how family physicians can create safe spaces for 2SLGBTQ+ patients with Drs Robyn Moxley, Andrew Organek, and Thea Weisdorf.

Symptoms drive patients to seek primary care, but the fact that up to half never lead to a diagnosis is a challenge; it’s also an opportunity to refresh how symptoms are viewed in family medicine. Dr Nick Pimlott hosts a discussion with Dr Thomas Freeman and Dr Moira Stewart about the implications of paying greater attention to symptoms for patient care, research, and teaching.

Check out their research on abdominal pain symptoms in the May 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/5/341. Their informative essay on studying symptoms in family practice appeared in the March 2020 issue: https://www.cfp.ca/content/66/3/218.

Continuous, longitudinal care results in better patient outcomes and health care savings, so how can this evidence be leveraged to address the crisis in family medicine? Dr Nick Pimlott Interviews Drs Michael Kolber, Tina Korownyk, and Jennifer Young about the case for investing in primary care.

Read their article in the April 2023 issue of Canadian Family Physician: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/4/269. 

The success of an innovative nurse-led program points to a way to rethink how family practices help patients manage chronic noncancer pain. Dr Nick Pimlott interviews Dr Hillel Finestone about the initiative and how other clinics could adopt this approach.

Dr Finestone is a Professor in the Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Ottawa and a physiatrist at Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital. Read his article in the March issue of Canadian Family Physician and go to the CFPlus tab to access the tools highlighted in this episode: https://www.cfp.ca/content/69/3/e52.