It is December 3rd, 2015. I am standing in Grant Hall at Queen’s University, surrounded by students, faculty and reporters. Faces are illuminated with smiles. There is palpable feeling of happiness and contentment in the room. A colleague takes the stage. People are on their feet. The circumstance of this happy gathering was a send off for one of our own, Dr. Art McDonald, who departed days later for Stockholm to be acknowledged on the world stage as co-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Kingdom of Bhutan measures their national wealth in terms of GNH: Gross National Happiness, rather than money.
The Arts reveal the impact of disease with clarity that no medical paper or scientific presentation can achieve
Regulatory Fundamentalism: An overly strict application of the rules governing the conduct of clinical trials that increases research costs and slows the speed of RCTs without improving safety. Let’s say you are diagnosed to have a life-threatening cancer that is not curable with approved therapies. You might assume (hope) that you would have access to the very latest in experimental therapies, including those under study in randomized clinical trials (RCTs).
What is a dangerous idea? It’s a concept or worldview that moves us from the way we traditionally do things to a new paradigm. Dangerous ideas usually are inspired by unstable environments and/or recognition that following tradition beliefs and/or practices is untenable. As discussed by John Brockman, in his book, “What’s Your Dangerous Idea?” these ideas force us out of our comfort zone.
Autopsy: a postmortem examination. From Greek, autoptēs 'eyewitness' (autos 'self' + optos 'seen'). Medicine has a longstanding practice of conducting Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) rounds. These rounds serve to improve quality of care and reflect a recognition of our professional fallibility and of the need to constantly monitor and improve Medical practice. M&Ms are a weekly rounds, open to the institutions’ health care professionals, in which cases are presented.