In the Spotlight
Overcoming Inequity: An Occupational Therapist’s Journey
After experiencing a few roadblocks while on a NOSM placement, learner Julie Mahoney says something is needed to improve equity for Occupational Therapy (OT) learners. “I don’t want people to misunderstand. My experience was great! I loved my time on placement and I learned a lot from it, but there were some hiccups. Once I realized other students had similar experiences, I knew something needed to change,” says Mahoney, referring to a NOSM placement in the south. Mahoney experienced several weeks of the hospital's administrative delay, which caused a setback in her learning experience. The organization she was placed at offe...
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Telemedicine proven effective for treating opioid addictions in the North
A leading addictions specialist is surprised by the results of a study showing telemedicine is improving addiction treatment outcomes in the North. “The assumption was that telemedicine was an inferior alternative to in-person care, but that is not the case,” says Dr. David Marsh, NOSM Professor, leading addictions researcher and member of an opioid emergency task force for the province. “We started studying telemedicine to see if outcomes using telemedicine were in fact worse. We were quite surprised to find out that patients in addictions treatment who were seen via telemedicine did as well, or better, than the patients see...
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Rural emergency medicine: Learning from a fatal head-on collision in Wawa
“It was pitch black on the highway. There was no light, except for the vehicle that had caught on fire and the headlights from police cars. We used our ambulance headlights to see,” says Derek Blanchet, Primary Care Paramedic. He and fellow paramedic Zoltan Pinter were the first responders to arrive on the scene on Sunday, August 19, 2018. Blanchet and Pinter were responding to a two-vehicle, head-on collision on Highway 17, 20 minutes south of Wawa at 10:30 p.m. The first car hit a moose then collided into the oncoming car. The result was a Multiple Casualty Incident (MCI) involving nine people: two pediatric of the sev...
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