Raw Talk Podcast

#90: Anti-Black Racism in Healthcare

Like so many institutions, anti-Black racism continues to pervade the healthcare system—rarely in overt, obvious ways, but in ways that undeniably lead to worse health outcomes for Black communities. In this episode, we discuss the uncomfortable truths of anti-Black racism in healthcare, and what we can do about it. We hear from Dr. Sean Wharton, Medical Director of the Wharton Medical Clinic, Internist, and Adjunct Professor at McMaster University and York University, about his experiences in the healthcare system, as a trainee, physician, and researcher. He discusses the roots of racist systems, and the impacts of subconscious biases on both the provision and receipt of patient care. As the founder of the Black Medical Students’ Association, he describes how the unique needs of different trainee and patient populations must be recognized and addressed if we hope to provide equitable care. We also spoke with Jessica Goncalves, a nursing student and the first Black President of the Nursing Undergraduate Society at the University of Toronto. She tells us about the labelling that begins long before members of the Black community enter health professions, and the importance of diverse representation within such professions. We hope that you are inspired—as we are—by our guests, to continue conversations, advocacy, and actions in the pursuit of health equity.

Written by: Rachel Dadouch

Dr. Wharton - Wharton Medical Clinic
Dr. Wharton - Feature UofT Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Wharton - Inaugural Lecture in Black Health for City-Wide Medical Grand Rounds
Jessica Gonclaves - President of the Nursing Undergraduate Society
Resource - The Implicit Project
Article - The Effect of Race and Sex on Physicians' Recommendations for Cardiac Catheterization
Resource - Anti-Racism Resources
Article - For our White Friends Desiring to be Allies
Book - So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Book - How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Book - Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism by John Hoberman
Event - Black Physicians Association of Ontario Annual Health Symposium (Feb 27, 2021)
Organization - Black Physicians of Canada
Organization - U of T Black Medical Students Association

 

#89: Vaccines: Making History

Vaccine technology has come a long way in terms of safety and understanding the underlying immunological principles. The first vaccine that was made was against smallpox in the late 18th century. Since then, vaccines have become the key tool in fighting against infectious diseases that have affected humans for centuries, including chickenpox, measles, and polio. But as the world prepares for the largest mass vaccination campaign in history with the COVID19 vaccines, there are many people that are somewhat hesitant about the vaccination process but are curious to learn more. The emergence of mRNA vaccines has allowed for the fastest development of a vaccine in history and could be a sign of what's to come in the future. In this episode, we talk about the COVID19 mRNA vaccine with the co-founder of Moderna, Dr. Derrick Rossi and about how mRNA can be used in personalized cancer vaccines with Providence Therapeutics' Chief Development officer, Dr. Natalia Martin Orozco. We look back at the history of vaccine development with Dr. Christopher Rutty. Finally, We also speak with Dr. Nicole Charles to explore the complexity of vaccine hesitancy in marginalized communities.

Written by: Yagnesh Ladumor

Connaught Labs at UofT
History of Vaccination virtual exhibit
Dr. Charles' book - Suspicion. Vaccines, Hesitancy, and the Affective Politics of Protection in Barbados
Seminal paper from the Rossi Lab about Modified RNAs
Providence Therapeutics

 

#88: Tuberculosis: The Forgotten Pandemic

Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infectious disease that affects millions of people globally every year. Despite being one of the oldest infectious diseases in humans, control of the epidemic through treatment and vaccination has remained out of reach. In today’s episode, we learned about what makes TB so difficult to control, from immunology to stigma. First, Dr. Jun Liu, a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at University of Toronto, guides us through current knowledge on TB and discusses the difficulties and advances in developing TB vaccines. Next, Dr. Amrita Daftary, a Professor in the Department of Global Health at York University, explains the process of diagnosing and treating TB, and later highlights challenges that patients with TB may face while accessing care. Finally, Dr. Sarah Fortune, the Director of TB Research Program at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, helps us understand how TB drug resistance can arise, and why TB-HIV co-infection poses such a challenge. The fight against TB continues every day, by millions of patients, healthcare providers, and researchers alike. Join us as we learn about this forgotten pandemic.

Written by: Tsukiko Miyata

Dr. Jun Liu - profile
Dr. Amrita Daftary - profile
Dr. Sarah Fortune - profile
What is DOTS? - report
Paul Farmer on Partners in Health, Harvard-Haiti, and making the lives of the poor the fight of his life
TB Personal Stories
Vaccine Preventable Diseases

#87: Water: Access, Equity and Greater Impacts

It's only natural to be curious about the most essential need for human health and survival: water. In this episode, we learn about clean water, recognizing the drastic difference in water security between communities and what can be done about it. We spoke with Dr. Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of Saskatchewan, about water infrastructure in terms of freshwater availability, climate change, and the value of federal oversight and science communication. Dr. Madjid Mohseni, professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia and Scientific Director of RES'EAU, shares his expertise in water quality and technologies, and his efforts to facilitate safe drinking water access. He emphasizes collaboration with Indigenous communities and the importance of water operators, echoed by John Millar, the founder of Water First. John delves into the training and education for Indigenous community members, as an essential way to combat water challenges on the ground. Currently, boil water advisories disproportionately affect Indigenous communities. We discuss environmental racism with Dr. Ingrid Waldron, Associate Professor at Dalhousie University and author of "There's Something In The Water". Dr. Waldron draws upon intersectionality in the context of environmental health inequities, and shares the impact of policy changes.

Written by: Rachel Dadouch

Dr. Jay Famiglietti's website
Dr. Famiglietti's podcast: Let's Talk About Water
Dr. Madjid Mohseni's profile
Dr. Ingrid Waldron's profile
Emerging trends in global freshwater availability (Nature)
RES'EAU Centre for Mobilizing Innovation's (RES'EAU)
59 long-term drinking water advisories
Water First
The ENRICH Project
Support Bill C-230

 

#86: Global Health

As we have learned through the COVID-19 pandemic, the health of communities around the world is connected through shared technologies, institutions, and values. In this episode, we explore these connections outside the context of a pandemic. We learn how issues in global health are prioritized, funded, and measured; about the roots of global health in imperialism, and what it means to decolonize global health; and about the importance of highlighting local expertise and youth perspectives to strive for equity and improve health outcomes. We spoke with several leaders in global health, including: Dr. Erica Di Ruggerio, Director of the Centre for Global Health and the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health; Dr. Ngozi Erondu a Senior Research Fellow at the Chatham House Centre for Global Health Security and a Senior Public Health Advisor at Public Health England; Jason Nickerson, Humanitarian Affairs Advisor with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), and Colleen Dockerty, Registered Nurse and gender-based violence consultant, also with MSF; and Habon Ali, a Somali-Canadian community builder, who leads initiatives to improve health equity and remove systemic barriers to engaging youth in global health.

Written by: Stephanie Nishi

Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero - website
Dr. Ngozi Erondu - website
Dr. Jason Nickerson - website
Apathy is Boring (Habon Ali) - website
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) - website

 

#85: The Disability Discourse

There are things in life that people take for granted every day. For many of us, that is the privilege of moving about in a world that was designed for our bodies and our physical abilities. Imagine not being able to get to a meeting on time because the nearest subway isn’t accessible. Imagine not getting any matches on a dating profile because 2 years ago you got into a car accident and now you get from place to place in a wheelchair. Imagine what it feels like to have your body be looked at as a problem to be solved. In this episode, we are trying to address ableism by talking to people with lived experience about what having a disability means to them while living in our society and culture today. We talk to disability advocates about the important work they are doing to help challenge how we define disability. Is disability a design problem that we can solve? We also touch on topics that many of us think about on a daily basis: sex, dating. We hope that this episode will help you reflect on some biases you have about living with a disability and think about what you can do to make your world more accessible, because we all deserve the same opportunities in life regardless of our physical ability.

Written by: Claire Mazzia

The Disabled List
Dr. Jeff Preston's website
Centre for Independent Living in Toronto

#84: Passports and Procedures: Receiving and Providing Care Abroad

As Canadians, we're usually quite proud of our excellent healthcare system. However, as we learned in Episodes 83 on organ donation, 82 on amputation, and others, gaps in public coverage and long wait times sometimes prevent Canadians from accessing the best care. Enter "medical tourism", or "medical travel". In this episode, we explored what it might be like for Canadians to access care abroad. We spoke with Adele Kulyk, the CEO of Global Healthcare Connections. Adele has worked for the last ten years as a coordinator to help facilitate Canadians traveling elsewhere for care. Adele explains what may drive people to leave and what sort of procedures are accessed abroad. As we explored this topic, we discovered another reason Canadians travel abroad related to healthcare: as medical students and other trainees to actually provide care, a practice colloquially known as "medical voluntourism". To understand this theme, we sat down with Dr. Noelle Sullivan, a professor in anthropology at Northwestern University, and Dr. Jessica Evert, Family Medicine Physician at UCSF. Both guests spoke to their extensive research and experience working with medical trainees travelling abroad to provide care, shared their concerns about the impacts of these experiences on host communities, and offered insights on how to approach these opportunities with humility and grace.

Written by: Larkin Davenport Huyer

Global Healthcare Connections
2017 Fraser Institute Report on Medical Travel by Canadians
Birth Tourism in Canada - Article
Dr. Noelle Sullivan - Website
Dr. Jessica Evert - Profile
Child Family Health International

 

#83: The Stories, Science and Ethics of Organ Donation

About 90% of Canadians say they support organ and tissue donation but less than 20% have made plans to donate. To tackle this discrepancy, Nova Scotia is set to become the first province in the country to have presumed consent for organ and tissue donation beginning in 2021. In this episode of Raw Talk, we speak to Jed Gross about the opt-in/opt-out systems, the ethical dilemmas of organ allocation and more. Next, we hear from Myles Lynch and Maariyah Rahman, who are alive today because of the organ donations they have received. We also had the opportunity to speak with Jillian Lynch, Myles' sister, who has been a huge advocate for organ donation, and a caregiver to her brother. Dr. Shafique Keshavjee, the Surgeon-in-Chief at University Health Network, discusses the science of organ transplant and cutting edge research that is causing the field to evolve very quickly, improving the life expectancy for many people like Myles who needed new lungs, and Maariyah who found out her heart suddenly began to fail when she was only 20 years old. Finally Dr. Istvan Mucsi, speaks to us about the important role of ethnicity, culture and religion in organ donation. We hope this episode exposes the remarkable feats and challenging realities of organ donation and transplantation today.

Written by: Claire Mazzia

The Organ Project
Organ and Tissue Donation Canada
Organ and Tissue Donation Ontario - Register to be a donor
Trillium Gift of Life

#82: Making Strides: Amputation & Prosthetics

On April 12, 1980, 22-year old Terry Fox dipped his toe into the icy Atlantic Ocean outside St John's, Newfoundland before setting out on one of the most inspiring athletic feats the world has ever seen. 40 years later, adaptive athletes continue to inspire movement and movements across the world. In this episode of Raw Talk Podcast, we explore lower-limb amputation, the phenomenon of phantom limb, and modern prosthetics. First, we sat down with Aristotle Domingo, an adaptive athlete, bilateral amputee, actor, motivational speaker, and founder of the Amputee Coalition of Toronto. Aristotle shared with us his amputation journey, from the difficult decision to have the surgery, to his ongoing work building and supporting the amputee community here in the GTA. Next, Dr. Amanda Mayo, a physiatrist with St. John's Rehab at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, explained the common reasons for amputation and considerations for surgical planning. Dr. Mayo also described the funding challenges experienced by amputees in Canada seeking to make the most of modern prosthetic technologies. Finally, Dr. Jan Andrysek, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at U of T and developer of the All-Terrain Knee, described the technical challenges in lower-limb prosthesis design, particularly to meet the rough-and-tumble needs of children. Dr. Andrysek also outlined his vision for the the future of prosthetics - it might not be what you'd think. Until next time, #keepitraw!

Written by: Jesse Knight

Aristotle Domingo
Amputee Coalition of Toronto
The AmpuTO Show Podcast
Dr. Amanda Mayo
Dr. Jan Andrysek's PROPEL Lab
Legworks and the All Terrain Knee

#81: A Fault in Our Memory

Memory is essential for forming individual identity, as well as the process of learning. Yet, memory is not without its faults. In this episode of Raw Talk Podcast, we try to understand what memory is, the processes that affect the quality of our memories and the implications of faulty memory on the validity of eyewitness testimonies in the legal system. First we hear from Joey DeGrandis who shares his unique ability to recall specific details of autobiographical events. This rare memory phenomenon, known as Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), provides an opportunity to investigate the brain systems underlying enhanced memory and conversely memory loss. We then hear from Dr. Amy Finn, an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and the principal investigator of the Learning and Neural Development Lab. Dr. Finn discusses memory formation and how the brain and cognitive development constrains and enables learning, using examples, such as the famous case of patient H.M. To better understand the 'faults in our memory', Dr. Daniel Schacter, a Harvard University Professor, discusses his work on how memory's malfunctions may be classified into seven fundamental transgressions or "sins" and describes the seven sins of memory errors. Finally, we hear from Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, who shares her experience on how memory may be manipulated and modified by messages, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information. Dr. Loftus' memory research has had significant applications to the legal field, given its reliance on memory. Join us as we put our own memories to the test and learn more about how we remember….and forget, on this week's episode of Raw Talk.

Written by: Stephanie Nishi

Raw Talk Podcast Friendraiser
Joey DeGrandis, Time Magazine Article, 2017
Finn LAND Lab
Dr. Daniel Schacter
Dr. Elizabeth Loftus
UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Book "The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers" by Dr. Daniel Schacter
Book "Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets" by Luke Dittrich