jjablkowski's blog

I read the May 2019 BCMJ editorial, “Mistaken,” with great sympathy for DRR. My stomach gave a lurch as I recalled hereto-suppressed memories of some of my mistakes from my practising past. 

Of the 18 646 emergency department visits in British Columbia for concussions in 2016/2017, 40% of patients were under 19 years of age. It is estimated that approximately 1 in 165 adults sustain a concussion each year, as cited by the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation. Concussion is the most common form of brain injury, and experts suspect this significant health issue is still widely underreported. The BC-specific data do not reflect the number of children, youth, and adults who sustained a concussion but were treated in physicians’ offices, walk-in clinics, or those not diagnosed.

In most Canadian provinces the second Monday of May is observed as a statutory holiday. It is a day to honor the memory of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) and her historical era of the mid-to-late 1800s. From a medical perspective, the Victorian era was been quite exceptional. Modern medicine may be attributed to discoveries made in those years as health and medical ideologies moved from humors to phrenology to anesthesia and antisepsis to what we now call the evidence-based practice of medicine.

“A man’s work is from sun to sun but a mother’s work is never done.”
—Anonymous

Your 2017 mini profile is now available, exclusively online. Visit www.doctorsofbc.ca/news/2017-mini-profile-now-available to learn more.