Past Episodes

Friday September 9, 2011

WCBA Season Debut: Personal Support Workers and Seniors

Welcome to our sixth season of White Coat Black Art on CBC Radio One and Sirius Satellite Channel 159.  Canada has an aging population.  By 2036, an estimated 25 per cent of Canadians will be over the age of 65.  And today, more and more seniors are being cared for by largely unregulated health care workers.  The workers go by different names in different parts of the country.  BC, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland call them Home Support Workers.  In Alberta and Quebec, they're known as Health Care Aides.  Canada's largest province calls them Personal Support Workers or PSWs, which is what we'll call them. White Coat Black Art launches a new season, beginning with a close look at the increasingly complex care some of these paid caregivers are being asked to provide. 

That's Saturday, September 10 at 11:30 am (noon NT) and again on Monday, September 12 at 11:30 am (3:30 pm NT) on CBC Radio One.  Or click below to listen right now or download the podcast: 

Personal Support Workers Show (Pop-up)

 
To read more about this week's show, click below:

Read more »

Categories: Accountability, Blog Archives, Health Professionals, Law & Ethics, Past Episodes, Patient Safety

 

Monday August 29, 2011

WCBA in the Summer: Will to Die Part 2 + Overdiagnosed

Our Will to Die show was one of our more controversial episodes. We had an extraordinarily frank conversation with Nagui Morcos, a man in his early fifties with Huntington's disease (HD). It's a neurodegenerative disorder that causes slurred speech and abnormal movements, loss of emotional control, incapacitation and premature death. HD is a genetic disorder. The offspring of patients with HD have a fifty percent chance of developing the disease themselves. Watching his own father die was a significant factor in Nagui's decision to choose the moment of his own death - before the disease makes him unable to do so himself. 

This week, we feature your reaction to this show, as well as a conversation with physician and bioethicist Dr. Stephen Workman of Dalhousie University in Halifax. 

We also talk up something called "overdiagnosis". Increasingly, doctors label you - not with diabetes or cancer, but with names like pre-diabetes and pre-cancer - when you feel perfectly fine and may never develop those and other dreaded diseases. 

Physician Gilbert Welch says the problem is that patients are "overdiagnosed." And that's the title of a new book he's co-authored.

Tune in today at 11:30 am (3:30 pm NT) on CBC Radio One. Or, click below to listen to the show right now, or download the podcast:

Will to Die part 2 + Overdiagnosed Show (Pop-up)

Categories: Accountability, Blog Archives, Communication, Law & Ethics, Past Episodes

 

Monday August 22, 2011

WCBA in the Summer: Will to Die Show

Today, we air one of our most powerful episodes from last season. As Canada's population ages, more and more of us are contemplating our own mortality. An Environics poll last November found nearly six in ten Canadians support legalizing euthanasia. In Quebec, where the approval figure is as high as eight in ten, a committee of the Quebec National Assembly has recently held hearings on legalizing assisted suicide. It's one thing to tell a pollster you favor legalizing euthanasia - quite another to take steps to end your own life. Nagui Morcos is just such a man. On the show he'll tell us why he has a will -- not to live -- but to die.

Tune in today at 11:30 am (3:30 pm NT) on CBC Radio One. Or, click below to listen to the show right now, or download the podcast:

Will to Die Show (Pop-up)

To read Dr. Brian's original post when this show first aired, please click after the jump: Read more »

Categories: Blog Archives, Communication, Law & Ethics, Past Episodes

 

• September 2011
  • Fri., 9 – WCBA Season Debut: Personal Support Workers and Seniors
     
• August 2011
  • Mon., 29 – WCBA in the Summer: Will to Die Part 2 + Overdiagnosed
     
  • Mon., 22 – WCBA in the Summer: Will to Die Show
     
• July 2011
  • Mon., 11 – WCBA in the Summer: Boundaries Part Two
     
• June 2011
  • Thu., 30 – WCBA in the Summer: Boundaries Part One
     
  • Fri., 17 – U of A Med School Dean Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
     
  • Wed., 15 – Update on Alleged Plagiarism by University of Alberta's Dean Baker
     
  • Mon., 13 – Medical Deans Who Plagiarize Should Resign
     
• May 2011
  • Tue., 17 – The Black Art of Delivering Bad News to Patients
     
• April 2011
  • Wed., 13 – Beware of "Off-Label" Prescribing
     
  • Tue., 12 – Older Doctors: Update
     
  • Fri., 8 – Will to Die Part 2 + Overdiagnosed
     
  • Mon., 4 – Will to Die Mailbag
     
• March 2011
  • Thu., 31 – Older Doctors Mailbag
     
  • Thu., 10 – Breaking Up Mailbag
     
  • Wed., 2 – Good Samaritan Mailbag
     
• February 2011
  • Tue., 22 – Getting Older Drivers Off the Road: An MD's Lament
     
  • Thu., 10 – Put Down that Scalpel: an update
     
  • Wed., 2 – Mailbag on Euthanasia (Corridor) Show
     
• January 2011
  • Fri., 28 – Corridors of Medicine show
     
  • Thu., 27 – Hospital Fixer Mailbag
     
  • Thu., 13 – Thursday Mailbag
     
• November 2010
  • Tue., 16 – Can Doctors Impose Do Not Resuscitate Orders? They Can
     
  • Tue., 9 – Don't Label Patients Difficult
     
  • Tue., 9 – Duty to Refuse Death-Delaying Treatment?
     
  • Fri., 5 – Join Me Sat. November 6 at a Public Forum on Palliative Care
     
• October 2010
  • Fri., 22 – Sex, Lies and Medical Mistakes Episode
     
  • Wed., 20 – Wednesday Mailbag
     
  • Sat., 16 – 'To Err is Medicine' Townhall Episode
     
  • Thu., 14 – Sneak Preview of Our Medical Errors Town Hall
     
  • Tue., 12 – Town Hall Tonight
     
  • Fri., 8 – To Err Is Medicine? Meet Our Panel of Experts
     
  • Thu., 7 – To Err is Medicine? Anatomy of a Modern Problem
     
  • Mon., 4 – Want to Friend Your MD? Go Rural!
     
  • Fri., 1 – Social Medicine
     
• September 2010
  • Wed., 29 – Bonus Interview on Political Activism with Quebec College President
     
  • Wed., 29 – Wednesday Mailbag
     
  • Mon., 27 – Sneak Preview of WCBA's Next Show on Social Medicine
     
  • Fri., 24 – Put down the scalpel and raise a fist
     
  • Wed., 22 – Wednesday Mailbag
     
  • Wed., 15 – Telling Tales
     
  • Wed., 15 – Wednesday Mailbag: Reaction to MS Show
     
  • Mon., 13 – Newfoundland and Labrador puts its money down
     
  • Tue., 7 – Euthanasia Debate Heats Up in Quebec
     
• August 2010
  • Wed., 11 – Medical Errors: a list you don't want to ignore
     
  • Wed., 4 – Pharma-Sponsored Research: Good News Means Bias
     
• July 2010
  • Mon., 26 – MDs at the Root of Big Pharma's Influence
     
  • Thu., 22 – MDs and Patients as Facebook Friends? Think Twice
     
  • Wed., 21 – Tasers in the ER? You've got to be Kidding!