Tuesday Edition 

Simple Ideas To Help You Make Meaningful Change (Forbes) 

Significant changes or epic moments don't happen overnight. And in most cases, those breakthroughs are not spontaneous—instead, they are more of a tipping point. These moments may feel like an "aha moment." And they usually occur when the ideas that have been permeating in your mind finally get enough attention to dominate your thoughts. But sometimes, your thoughts affect how you react. This is because your thoughts are a catalyst for self-perpetuating cycles—meaning, you are what you think. More...  

Tough choices needed to slow new wave of COVID-19 (Canadian Medical Association) 

The fifth wave of COVID-19 is here. Early evidence suggests that omicron is far more transmissible than previous variants, but our understanding of the virus is still growing. As exhausted, frustrated and angry as all Canadians are, we cannot ignore our reality or simply wish it away. The medical and scientific community is watching omicron closely, and the next few weeks will help us determine how severe cases caused by the omicron variant will be, even as we anticipate the number of cases to increase significantly. We need to be vigilant until we know more about it. More...  

The unsung heroes: Respiratory therapists (KevinMD) 

Respiratory therapists are specialized health care professionals trained in critical care and cardio-pulmonary medicine. They work therapeutically with people suffering from acute critical conditions plus cardiac and pulmonary diseases. College-educated with an associate’s degree or a Bachelor’s degree, they put in hundreds of hours in their training with theory and clinical practice. During COVID, ER and ICU nurses and physicians were the focus as dynamic life-saving forces. But if you built a pyramid, the backbone would consist of respiratory therapists. More...  

Schizophrenia still carries a stigma. Will changing the name help? (New York Times) 

For decades, Linda Larson has been trying to distance herself from the diagnosis she was given as a teenager: schizophrenia. She accepts she has the mental disorder but deeply resents the term’s stigma. Ms. Larson, 74, is part of a group trying to remove that association—of “violent, amoral, unhygienic,” she says—by changing the name of the illness. The idea is that replacing the term “schizophrenia” with something less frightening and more descriptive will not only change how the public perceives people with the diagnosis, but also how these people see themselves. More...  

Making sense of population health: A clinician's perspective (King's Fund) 

"What has population health got to do with me, an eye surgeon?" I asked myself this after a long day working in the extra corneal clinic set up on a Saturday to cope with the backlog of patients created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other clinicians may be pondering the same question, feeling uncertain about their role in and relevance to population health (a whole-systems approach that aims to improve health and care for populations). However, perhaps there is a way for clinicians to step into this work purposefully without feeling completely overwhelmed. More...