Addressing the Gaps
NOSM-acquired Skills Help Fill a Gap in Care for Underserved Populations
Dr. Andrea Haner (MD Class of 2010) is applying the skills she learned at NOSM to treat diverse, underserved populations. She is the only GP Oncologist treating gynecological cancer in the Southwest Alberta region. “The population I work with is very underserved. If I didn’t do this work, women would have to commute to Calgary—a two-and-a-half-hour drive into the cancer centre for most,” says Dr. Haner. “Instead, they can come to Lethbridge for chemotherapy treatment.” The skills Dr. Haner learned at NOSM, with a focus on the personal side of medicine, helped prepare her for the subspecialties she’s taken on, includin...
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Telemedicine proven effective for treating opioid addictions in the North
A leading addictions specialist is surprised by the results of a study showing telemedicine is improving addiction treatment outcomes in the North. “The assumption was that telemedicine was an inferior alternative to in-person care, but that is not the case,” says Dr. David Marsh, NOSM Professor, leading addictions researcher and member of an opioid emergency task force for the province. “We started studying telemedicine to see if outcomes using telemedicine were in fact worse. We were quite surprised to find out that patients in addictions treatment who were seen via telemedicine did as well, or better, than the patients see...
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Rural emergency medicine: Learning from a fatal head-on collision in Wawa
“It was pitch black on the highway. There was no light, except for the vehicle that had caught on fire and the headlights from police cars. We used our ambulance headlights to see,” says Derek Blanchet, Primary Care Paramedic. He and fellow paramedic Zoltan Pinter were the first responders to arrive on the scene on Sunday, August 19, 2018. Blanchet and Pinter were responding to a two-vehicle, head-on collision on Highway 17, 20 minutes south of Wawa at 10:30 p.m. The first car hit a moose then collided into the oncoming car. The result was a Multiple Casualty Incident (MCI) involving nine people: two pediatric of the sev...
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