Podcast
Episodes
Kiersty Hong is a spiritual care practitioner at Sunnybrook. She often finds herself clarifying the role she plays on the health care team to other hospital staff and patients. Kiersty provides emotional support to any patient – regardless of their faith community or agnostic or atheist beliefs. Kiersty is here to tell us more about her work, so we can better make spiritual care a part of the interprofessional healthcare team.
Advance care planning is a process by which individuals express their healthcare preferences, values and priorities for the future. Through Advance Care Planning, individuals may identify a legally appointed Substitute decision maker. A substitute decision maker, or SDM, acts on behalf of someone when they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves. The SDMs role is to make decisions that are aligned with that individual’s previously expressed wishes. In Ontario, when a patient legally appoints a SDM this is called a Power of Attorney for personal care.
Even when an Advance Care Plan is in place, Dr Maria Muraca learned that unforeseen circumstances can come up. Maria was the Power of Attorney for her father, Michele, who died one year ago of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Maria is a family physician, as well as an advocate and teacher of advance care planning. She is here to tell us about her personal experience with her father’s changing advance care plan and how that has shaped her discussions with patients and health care workers.
The journey to sobriety took many detours for Patrick. What he originally chalked up to experimentation with drugs and alcohol, became a regular occurence. Crystal meth binges would end with a realization that Patrick was slowly losing himself. In these moments of clarity, he would reach out for help. Starting with psychiatric care, then to a harm reduction program and finally to a recovery program,
In her 20 years of experience as a trauma surgeon, Dr Najma Ahmed has seen an increasing number of gun violence incidents. The organization she co-founded, Canadian Doctors for Protection from Gun Violence, is centering gun violence as a public health issue. The organization’s work in research and policy has helped to pass laws increasing background checks for the transfer and sale of firearms, along with establishing an assault rifle ban. For her advocacy work, Dr. Ahmed has been awarded the 2020 Sir Charles Tupper Award for Political Advocacy from the Canadian Medical Association.
In Season 2, we spoke to Andrea Warnick, a registered psychotherapist and educator on the topic of grief in children. This season we wanted to share the story of the Gerardi family. Throughout her 3 years of cancer treatments, Kasia remained open and honest with her four daughters. When Kasia learned that her cancer had metastasized to her brain and that the end of her life was near, she and her husband Ricardo worked together to make family life memorable and prepare for her death. Kasia died in December 2019. Ricardo is here today to tell us about what grief has looked like for him and for his daughters.
Dr Janet Ellis is a medical psychiatrist who has extensively studied physician trauma and promoted physician wellness. From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Janet committed to supporting other health care professionals – instituting mental health screening protocols, offering psychosocial support and collecting research data. She is here to share her insights with us today – how the landscape is evolving and how we can care for ourselves and our colleagues.
Over the last year, the impact of systemic racism in healthcare has come into sharper focus. From racialized populations being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, to the cruel and senseless death of Joyce Echaquan in a Quebec hospital, it is more important than ever to look inwards at our own racial biases and at the widespread inequity that exists in the health care system.
Dr Lisa Richardson is the Strategic Lead in Indigenous Health at Women’s College Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Dr. Richardson is also the Vice-Chair, Culture & Inclusion at the Department of Medicine. She is working to advance inclusion, equity and wellness through her work with students, faculty and staff across U of T.
Indigenous Cultural Safety Training Program https://www.sanyas.ca
Indigenous Health Primer from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada https://www.royalcollege.ca/rcsite/documents/health-policy/indigenous-health-primer-e.pdf
Harvard Implicit Bias Test https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/indexrk.htm
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit everyone hard, but those living in long-term care facilities have faced unprecedented circumstances. Long-term care residents were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in terms of illness and death. As cases multiplied, residents were isolated from the outside world. Stacey Greenberg is here today to tell us about her father who lived with Multiple Sclerosis in a long-term care facility since 2014. During the pandemic, Stacey had limited contact with her father and he was sadly isolated from his loved ones in his final days due to COVID-19 visitor and caregiver restrictions. Although he did not die of COVID-19, there were significant changes that impacted his daily life.
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