During my training last year as a medical student a great emphasis was placed on interprofessional education. I learnt about the other health professionals and the vital roles they play in providing the best care for patients. Some of the other professionals appeared to me to be very well suited for patient advocacy. It made me wonder what makes physicians suited for patient advocacy and population health advocacy. I decided to see what literature there was on this topic…

A patient is unable to afford medications necessary to manage their chronic illness. As a physician, you may not even inquire as to whether the patient can afford their prescription medication and thus do nothing OR you may advocate for your patient and for a better healthcare system by ensuring they get their medications and letting healthcare administrators know about this gap in ability to provide care. Which type of physician will you be?

Recently DataKind, an organization that I have been following for some time, held a session exploring the need for a ‘hippocratic oath [in] data science’.

Delivery of healthcare differs vastly across nations. We, in Canada, often contrast our system with that of the United States. However, frequently the facts of the system give way to myths. So perhaps a little evidence-based clarification is in order.

Github pages is where I learnt github repositories could be used to host a website using jekyll. This website was created using the theme lanyon, which derives from poole. Jekyll, Poole and Lanyon are all characters from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.