medical school

In the first month of UBC medical school, students are taught that, in the vast majority of cases, listening to what a patient has to say (i.e., taking a good history) yields the diagnosis. Ordering expensive laboratory tests or special investigations are only warranted when they will provide additional information aiding in the diagnosis or management of disease. However, the UBC Faculty of Medicine obviously does not practice what it preaches.

The transformation of medicine in BC over the past 100 years and the breakneck pace of change we now find routine ensure that pre-dictions are hazardous, particularly about the future (to paraphrase a famous social commentator). Nevertheless I will make a few predictions for the next quarter century in BC.

Daily experiences in the Peruvian Amazon during a rural family-medicine elective.

Things are not always what they seem. This summarizes my daily experiences in the Peruvian Amazon for a rural family-medicine elective. Although on first sight the situations and approaches used seemed drastically different from what would be the norm in Canada, I quickly realized that they were just alternative paths to the same endpoint in most cases, and there were more similarities in play than differences.