jjablkowski's blog

I am 94 years old and, 2 years after the end of a 70-year-long relationship, I live alone. Although I am alone, I am not lonely. I have many friends, appreciated former colleagues, and kind acquaintances. I am in touch by phone or email with both close and distant family members. I even have the privilege of closely witnessing the miraculous growth of a new little human almost from the day of his birth, the child and grandchild of wonderful parents and grandparents. I consider myself most fortunate with these riches of social contacts and relationships.

The Help BC Hear Better Group is a passionate team of health care professionals, researchers, and people with hearing loss who want improved access to hearing health care in British Columbia.

The goal of Help BC Hear Better is to improve access to hearing health care, including funding support for hearing aids, especially for vulnerable populations most adversely affected by hearing loss: children and seniors. 

1977 seems like a lifetime ago, and as I attended my 45th University of Alberta medical class reunion I was struck by the profound changes in medicine my classmates and I had witnessed over the decades. Many chose to pursue specialties, but a substantial number of us decided that a family practice residency was the way to go. For us at that time, a full-service cradle-to-grave family doctor was the norm, encompassing community care via an office, obstetrics, emergency department shifts, in-hospital care, and nursing home visits. Both solo and group practices of varying sizes were common.

The last decade has seen increased framing of the climate crisis as a health emergency, accompanied by more effort from health systems and health care workers to address this emergency as we see firsthand the health impacts of environmental issues on patients. 

Recently I had lunch with two retired physician friends and during our chit chat about past and present medical practices, we touched on the rise of telephone consultations. Calling a doctor on the phone is nothing new. In my time in general medical practice in the 1950s to the late 1960s, patients usually called me directly at my home after office hours or left messages with my dedicated telephone answering service. Most of those calls were short, reporting some acute symptomology, or even an emergency, like a fall.