Medicine Canada

> A British Columbia provincial policy that forced people with chronic illnesses such as Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis to switch to cheaper medications saved the province more than $730-million over five years, according to a new government report. > > The B.C. government said Friday that the money freed up through its biosimilar switching plan allowed the province to expand public coverage of other drugs and devices, including Trikafta, a life-changing treatment for cystic fibrosis and continuous glucose monitors for people with diabetes.

Don’t panic! Disease X doesn’t exist yet – but it might one day. Disease X is the label that the World Health Organization uses to refer to some currently unknown infectious condition that is capable of causing an epidemic or – if it spreads across multiple countries – a pandemic. The term, coined in 2017, can be used to mean a newly discovered pathogen or any known pathogen with newly acquired pandemic potential. By the latter definition, covid-19 was the first Disease X. But there could be another in the future.

Non-Paywall Article

An analysis on primary care in Canada, and what we can do to improve it

> KEY POINTS > > * Canada spends less of its total health budget on primary care than the average among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (5.3% v. 8.1%). > > * Canada can learn lessons to inform policy on primary care from OECD countries like the United Kingdom, Norway, Netherlands and Finland where more than 95% of the population has a regular primary care clinician or place of care. > > * An analysis of these countries shows that those with high rates of primary care attachment have stronger contractual agreements and accountability for family physicians, including where they practise, their scope of practice and who they accept as patients. > > * Countries with high rates of primary care attachment have similar numbers of family physicians, but fewer work in walk-in clinics or specialized areas; family physicians are paid by capitation or salary, work in interprofessional teams and have excellent digital tools and information systems.

The article has more, I just pulled the key points section out

Non-Paywall Article

> Background: Globally, pharmaceutical companies offer patient support programs in tandem with their products, which aim to enhance medication adherence and patient experience through education, training, support and financial assistance. We sought to identify the proportion and characteristics of such patient support programs in Canada and to describe the nature of supports provided.

I pulled out the infographics for a short TLDR

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If you see a better source, I can swap it into this post

> A Winnipeg doctor hopes his legacy of providing health care to LGBTQ patients — one of only a few local physicians doing so at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis — extends beyond his life. > > Dr. Dick Smith, who had pancreatic cancer, died with medical assistance on Tuesday. He was 80. > > "My biggest thing that I want people to really get a grip on is that no minority of any kind, whether it be religious or sexual or racial, is ever safe," Smith told CBC News in an interview 24 hours before he died.

Article itself: Frontiers | Morphologic alterations of the fear circuitry: the role of sex hormones and oral contraceptives

Front. Endocrinol., 07 November 2023 https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2023.1228504

> Background: Endogenous sex hormones and oral contraceptives (OCs) have been shown to influence key regions implicated in fear processing. While OC use has been found to impact brain morphology, methodological challenges remain to be addressed, such as avoiding selection bias between OC users and non-users, as well as examining potential lasting effects of OC intake. > > Objective: We investigated the current and lasting effects of OC use, as well as the interplay between the current hormonal milieu and history of hormonal contraception use on structural correlates of the fear circuitry. We also examined the role of endogenous and exogenous sex hormones within this network.

They looked at the "virtual urgent care" pilot program in Ontario. Relevant bits:

> Virtual urgent care (VUC) is intended to support diversion of patients with low-acuity complaints and reduce the need for in-person emergency department visits. We aimed to describe subsequent health care utilization and outcomes of patients who used VUC compared with similar patients who had an in-person emergency department visit.

> Of the 19 595 patient VUC visits linked to administrative data, we matched 2129 patients promptly referred to the emergency department by a VUC provider to patients presenting to the emergency department in person

> Interpretation: The impact of the provincial VUC pilot program on subsequent health care utilization was limited. There is a need to better understand the inherent limitations of virtual care and ensure future virtual providers have timely access to in-person outpatient resources, to prevent subsequent emergency department visits.