CMAJ Podcasts

People with kidney failure who live in rural and remote areas of Canada do not have the same access to the full suite of dialysis modalities as urban dwellers. Many need to relocate for life-sustaining renal replacement therapy. Often this means moving hours away from their home communities for months, sometimes years, at a time. In this episode, hosts Drs. Mojola Omole and Blair Bigham speak with...

The CMAJ podcast is taking a break for one episode as everyone enjoys their holidays and gets prepared for the year ahead. In this brief chat, Mojola and Blair preview some of the upcoming episodes and wish all our listeners a happy and safe holiday. Comments or questions? Text us. Join us as we explore medical solutions that address the urgent need to change healthcare. Reach out to us about this...

One simple question can offer clinicians a powerful insight into the lives of their vulnerable patients. Asking, “Do you ever have trouble making ends meet at the end of the month” can help physicians identify significant barriers to restoring the health of their patients. The link between the social conditions in which we live and health outcomes is well-known. However, health provider action to...

The pandemic recovery period presents an opportunity to address health inequities that have led to an unfair distribution of the burden and harms of COVID-19.  New guidance for policy published in CMAJ   proposes 13 practical ways to address inequities exposed and worsened by COVID-19 in the pandemic recovery period, based on evidence that was accumulating before the pandemic. In this special epis...

Pain is one of the most common complaints among patients visiting the ER, and pain management has become a quality of care indicator. But the options available for the treatment of acute pain that isn’t controlled by over-the-counter medications are limited.  With the opioid epidemic leading physicians to avoid prescribing narcotics, the anaesthetic drug, ketamine, is being reconsidered for the tr...

One in four women physicians report a diagnosis of infertility. One reason for this is physicians tend to delay attempts to become pregnant until “the time is right” for their career.  But, in the medical profession, it seems there is really no “good” time to have children. Parenthood, especially motherhood, is seen as an inconvenience during medical training and beyond.  In this episode, Dr. Soph...

Button batteries, sometimes called coin batteries, are small round batteries that power various electronic devices such as watches, remote controls or small kid toys. They are small and shiny, which is why young children will sometimes grab them and put them in their mouths. But they can cause severe injury in a child if the button battery becomes lodged in the digestive tract.  In this episode, D...

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have transformed our lives. The adoption of AI in medicine has perhaps lagged its adoption in other areas, and machine learning in healthcare has had mixed results. In this episode, Drs. Muhammad Mamdani and Amol Verma discuss a series of three CMAJ articles on the development, use, misuse, and evaluation of machine-learned models in medicine....

Many options exist nowadays for teenagers choosing to be on hormonal contraceptives. They are generally categorized into SARCs (short-acting reversible contraceptives) and LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives). LARC methods are recommended as first-line contraceptives. These include intrauterine devices and a new option that gets implanted into the arm and lasts up to three years. In this...

In this episode, Dr. Kirsten Patrick, interim editor-in-chief, chats with Francine Buchanan about her experience as a patient partner. Francine is in a unique position at the intersection of caregiver for her medically fragile son, PhD candidate in health services research, and a patient and family advisor at The Hospital for Sick Children. She wrote a Humanities article published in CMAJ called &...

New research shows that Indigenous People living in rural Canada are 16 times more likely to have to travel long distances to give birth compared to non-Indigenous people living in rural areas. In this podcast, Dr. Janet Smylie and Evelyn George explain these striking findings. Dr. Janet Smylie is Métis-Cree, a family practitioner and professor of public health at the University of Toronto. Evelyn...

Dr. Malika Sharma and Dr. Rahel Zewude explain the tenets of critical race theory. They also share how it has helped them tackle racism in the practice of medicine and how they've applied it to their professional and personal lives as physicians in Canada. Dr. Malika Sharma is an HIV and infectious diseases specialist and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of...

Anticraving medications are a lesser-known therapy for patients with moderate to severe alcohol use disorder. In this podcast, Dr. Jon Mong and Dr. Paxton Bach explain how to recognize and diagnose moderate to severe alcohol use disorder and how to talk to patients about treatment options. Dr. Jon Mong is a general internist working at The Ottawa Hospital, with a clinical focus in addiction medici...

Dr. Olga Kciuk and Dr. Sari Kives talk about painful periods (dysmenorrhea) in teens – what causes it, how to diagnose it, how to rule out secondary causes, and how best to treat. Dr. Olga Kciuk is a fourth year resident in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Sari Kives is a gynecologist in Toronto, both at the Hospital for Sick Children and St. Michael's Hospital. The...

Dr. Ainsley Moore discusses a new guideline by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. The guideline recommends opportunistic screening for chlamydia and gonorrhea in primary care for individuals not known to be at high risk. Ainsley unpacks the recommendation and talks about what it means for clinical practice. Dr. Ainsley Moore is a family physician and an associate clinical professor...

Dre Guylène Thériault explique les recommandations clé des nouvelles lignes directrices sur dépistage de la chlamydia et de la gonorrhée en médecine de soins primaires chez les personnes non connues comme appartenant à un groupe à risque. Dre Guylène Thériault est médecin de famille et membre du Groupe d’étude canadien sur les soins de santé préventifs. Dre Thériault enseigne aussi la médecine fon...

Prof. Jonathan Berman discusses what drives antivaccine and anti-mask protests, such as the Montréal vaccine protest of 1885 which turned violent. He talks about vaccine hesitancy in history and how it relates to our current COVID-19 pandemic. Jonathan Berman is a physiologist at the New York Institute of Technology medical school and a science educator. He wrote an humanities article published in...

Prof. Andrea Tricco and Dr. Ainsley Moore discuss gender inequity in medicine at the senior leadership level and how it's intertwined with race. They also outline practical ways of advancing gender equity in medicine. Dr. Ainsley Moore is a family physician and an associate clinical professor in medicine at McMaster University. Prof. Andrea Tricco is a scientist at St. Michael's Hospital...

Drs Shirin Dason and Mara Sobel discuss how to diagnose and treat adenomyosis, a common cause of heavy and painful menstrual periods. Dr. Shirin Dason is a resident and soon-to-be infertility fellow at Mount Sinai Fertility in Toronto. Dr. Mara Sobel is a gynaecologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and Women's College Hospital in Toronto. To read the practice article published in CMAJ: www.cmaj.ca/...

A prescribing cascade happens when the side effects of a prescribed drug are misinterpreted as a new medical condition for which an additional drug is prescribed. Some prescribing cascades can become complicated to untangle and hard to catch. In this podcast, Dr. Paula Rochon outlines some of the common prescribing cascades that occur in older adults. Dr. Paula Rochon is a geriatrician at Women’s...

In this podcast, Dr. Andreas Laupacis, editor-in-chief of CMAJ, interviews two authors of a research article published in CMAJ. The research looked at SARS-CoV-2 infection among patients undergoing long-term dialysis in Ontario during the first wave of the pandemic. Rebecca Cooper is the director of clinical programs at the Ontario Renal Network, and Peter Blake is a nephrologist and the provincia...

Prof. Colleen Flood discusses the legalities around requiring health care workers to be vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19, both at the employer or hospital level and at the provincial government level. Colleen Flood is a professor in the faculty of law and the inaugural director of the Centre for Health Law Policy & Ethics, both at the University of Ottawa. She co-authored, wit...

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most hospitals in Canada adopted no-visitor policies because of concern that visitors would spread the virus. It was also a way of preserving personal protective equipment, which was in short supply at the time. Now, almost one year later, the authors of a commentary published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal argue that it’s time to reconsider such...

Dr. Carl Boodman discusses four cases of trench fever from Bartonella quintana which is transmitted by body lice. Trench fever was common during the First World War and killed millions of people. In modern times, it is rare, but outbreaks tend to be associated with homelessness, poor living conditions or a history of severe alcohol use disorder or IV drug use. Dr. Boodman first talks about a patie...

Dr. Christen Shoesmith and Dr. Colleen O’Connell discuss the first Canadian guideline on the care and management of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr. Shoesmith and Dr. O'Connell are two of the authors of the guideline, which is intended for ALS clinicians, allied health professionals and primary care providers and includes a patient-focused approach to care, with attentio...