We need a bold solution to a major health care problem: Almost 20% of the acute care beds in Kingston are unavailable for admission of new patients. How can this be? How could 20% of the beds in the SELHIN’s only tertiary care hospital have gone missing? Why have I not heard about it? Why is this not in the newspapers? What happened to these beds? Are they closed because of construction? Is there an epidemic? Has hospital funding been cut? The answer in each case is, “No”.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines privacy as: A state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people: she returned to the privacy of her own home or The state of being free from public attention:a law to restrict newspapers' freedom to invade people’s privacy This blog is written to remind doctors, doctors in training, secretaries and others who have access to health care records about the risks of inappropriately accessing health care records.

This is a blog about Syrian refugees. They are a specific people coming to Canada at a specific time for specific reasons. However, their stories are entwined with those of past immigrants, such as those of my wife’s family, the Doliszny’s. They came from Ukraine. In a generation the Dolisznys became nurses, lawyers, engineers, epidemiologists and educators. The lesson I take form this is that immigration enriches our country and should be embraced. Canada has a wonderful museum that tells the story of immigration, Pier 21 in Halifax.

Women who bleed: recognizing a common genetic disorder Heavy menstruation, pejoratively called the curse, can be a blessing, revealing the presence of a common and treatable genetic defect in blood clotting, Von Willebrand disease   In the Three Little Bears Mama and Papa bear always had things too hot, too cold, too big or too small; baby bear had it just right.

Although clinical trials generate vast amounts of data, a large portion is never published or made available to other researchers. Data sharing could advance scientific discovery and improve clinical care by maximizing the knowledge gained from data collected in trials, stimulating new ideas for research, and avoiding unnecessarily duplicative trials. Institute of Medicine

      Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common autoimmune condition that causes joint pain and swelling, systemic fatigue and ultimately can lead to joint deformity and disability. It afflicts women more than men. The bad news is that RA is getting more common. In Ontario there were almost 100,000 adults with RA in 2010, reflecting a prevalence of 0.9%.