A common theme emerging from the many discussions, commissions, and inquiries about Canada’s health care system is that “better management is required, not more money.” Health care planners and decision-makers are increasingly looking for ways to make the system more efficient and cost-effective. The questions being asked include:
• Who visits physicians?
• Why do people visit physicians?
• How necessary are these visits?
• How cost-effective are these visits?
Impairment caused by lack of sleep has long been recognized as a major factor in many transportation and industrial accidents. Based on recent scientific findings[1] regulated work and duty hours first proposed in the 1930s may become even more stringent.
Human sleep requirements
In the considerable literature on sleep, several concepts have relevance to the circumstances of physicians in BC today:
Coronary artery disease (CAD) continues to be the number one cause of death in North America—a fact that is stimulating the search for screening techniques for its early detection.
In this month’s issue there is a letter from a colleague complaining that by publishing a recent article on the treatment of fibromyalgia with acupuncture (2004;46(1):21-23) the BCMJ may have done a disservice to the doctors of BC.
