Primary Care - Doctor Week!

As usual, it's late on Sunday night and I really should go to bed, but I said I'd do these posts, so here I am. I was actually going to write this earlier, but I decided after 3 years, I'd finally give Game of Thrones another try. I tried watching it years ago and just couldn't get into it, but everyone is always talking about how good it is, plus it's almost December, so you know, "winter is coming." I know I technically saw it in the past, but watching the first episode just now, it was actually really good. I'm excited.

So anyway, a couple cool things this week. First off, I was finally the doctor in Primary Care. I think I explained in the past, but in Primary Care the class is set up as a practical with groups of 8. Every week someone acts as the doctor, we have a standardized patient come in, and for 45 minutes the doctor does an initial intake with questions and physical exams. The kicker is that as we are still learning, your group is available to help guide your thinking if you get lost, or are making a mistake on a physical exam, or miss an important question. This week was case 7, so we've been doing this for a while, but I was only just the doctor this week. It was a very humbling experience. When you're watching the case and doing research in your notes and online, you're disconnected enough that you can really think about stuff. As the doctor, I felt so connected and in the zone with the patient, I almost lost focus sometimes, and of course missed a couple really important questions. Thanks to my group though, I got on track, and I think I did well enough, getting a good amount of information to work with. It was definitely a cool experience, and I'm excited to do it again next semester, of course also doing more of this stuff with real people in my clinic shift. Also side note, I'm also going to be the doctor in Health Psych this week, so that should be interesting too. It's still a 45 minute visit, but a bit of a different focus. I'll talk about that next week.

So another cool thing this week was that it was Men's Health Week. We started off the week on Monday with Suit and Sunglasses day. It was a lot of fun, I usually come to school in joggers or sweatpants, so it felt pretty cool to come all dressed up. At common time we ran a Men's Auction, and raised a lot of money for our charity. I auctioned off some personal training services, so I was glad to be involved. Our charity by the way is Eva's Initiatives for Homeless Youth, a great cause for homeless youth in Toronto that really need help. You can check them out at here.

There was also a really great talk I went to on Wednesday, by Dr. Yashar Khosroshai, ND. He's one of the TAs for health psych at CCNM, and in addition to his practice, runs a company called MindShift Ninja. He has some pretty cool outlooks and perspectives to talk about. His talk this week was very intersting, called "Don't Be A Man, Be A Leader." I thought this was fantastic, because in our society today, there is too much focus on men being this stereotypical character, who is strong, closed off, and doesn't need anyone's help. I have lots of notes on this topic that I'm happy to share if you're interested. He also referred to a cool TED talk I finally watched today by Brene Brown on vulnerability, and how important it is to be vulnerable in order to succeed. To be a leader, to be connected to others, it all comes down to being self-aware, and being strong enough to be vulnerable, to be open and to be able to put your ego aside, asking for help when you need it.

I could talk about this stuff for hours, but I really should get going to bed, it's another long day tomorrow. Fun things for this week? Tomorrow we've got dance practice for Medgames, something I'm really excited about, and hopefully I'll have a video to link for you in January after it happens. I'm also going out to Costco to buy food for the MOSCE, an event I attended last year, but this year as one of the VP Academics for the NSA, I'm actually running! So that's on Tuesday, and I'm hoping it'll be a great event to help support the second years and prepare them for their OSCEs. On Friday I'll be shadowing the Fibromyalgia/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis shift, which should be pretty interesting. Speaking of that, my application was accepted and I got an interview! My interview is next Friday (December 11), so I'm hoping that will go well - we're a few weeks off, but I think I'll know if I get on the shift around the end of December.

Alright, long enough post, and it's almost 1! I'll leave you with a picture of my Mo progress for Movember. I don't do the 'stache only thing because it looks pretty bad on me, but it's been a fun month anyway.

I think I took the original picture really late on November 1st, that's probably why I look so out of it.
Or maybe I planned on making the Mo picture look a lot happier, strategy!

Focus Shifts

Another pretty relaxed week this week, though focus shift applications were due on Friday, so that was a bit of a stress. The Robert Shad Naturopathic Clinic (the school clinic at CCNM) has several different focus shifts that students can apply to. The purpose is to have a focus on a specific patient population during their shifts, and also to learn from supervisors with extra training in that area. The following shifts are available at the RSNC:

Pediatrics
Sports Medicine
Adjunctive Cancer Care
Fertility/Reproductive Health
Fibromyalgia/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

I decided to apply for the FM/ME shift, so I'll keep you posted on what happens with that. The applications included a CV (I haven't made one of these in forever!), and an essay. The essay was really tough because I haven't really done a lot of personal essays. Give me a research review or a scientific paper to write, sure thing. But writing about myself, and why I want to do something and would be good at it? That is a little more difficult. So it was a bit of a struggle, but with some help from my dad (who is a pretty great writer), I was able to put something together that was pretty good, and hope it'll get me the interview. There's an interview process in December I think, or possibly early January, and we'll see what happens.

Anyway, real quick about FM/ME so you know what it is. Basically they are two very complex conditions that do not have the best diagnosis and treatment right now. Both of these conditions can be very debilitating, and pull people away from work and the things they want to do in life. Naturopathic Medicine has a huge potential to help these people to improve their quality of life, and I'm very excited about the opportunity to help these people. In addition, I want to be the best doctor that I can in the future, and I believe that the challenge of working with complex cases would be a valuable experience. Here is a quick summary of FM and ME if you'd like to read more into them.

That's all for now, and oh ya this week is actually Men's Health Week! A very important time, remembering the importance of Men's Health. By the way, it is Movember, and I did shave clean at the beginning of the month, and I'll have a picture for the blog next week to show how far I've come. Hopefully I've helped raise some awareness and money for good causes as well.

Extra Men's Health Week Note

I know Men's Health Week is over (and it was a great week with lots of fun discussion), but here's a quick post I wanted to make last week, and of course forgot in the midst of tons of work.

Naturopathy is all about proactive medicine that empowers patients to help themselves, and one thing I think would be great for males to do once they are around 20, and especially between the ages of 20-39 is a testicular cancer exam. This exam is incredibly easy and doesn't take a very long time, and it definitely worth your time to do. Here is a quick video describing the process for the exam. You can do it in the shower quite easily, and I'd say doing it at least once a month or so would be very beneficial. You will have a good idea of what is normal, and be able to notice any abnormal changes in your testicles at a much earlier stage. Keep in mind that not all abnormal masses on the testicles are cancerous, but it is always better to find a problem at an early stage. Be proactive and help support your good male reproductive health!

- On a side note, I don't want to leave out the women, and I do think it is important for women to do self breast exams on a monthly basis as well, so here is a video for that as well.

Men's Health Week!

So this post is a bit late as we are partway through the week, but I wanted to make a quick post because it is Men's Health Week at CCNM! I think this is a really great event because a lot of naturopathic medicine seems to focus towards women. This is not bad at all, I think it's great and really a big part of it is that women are just more likely to take their health into their own hands. That's not to say that men don't care about their health, but for a lot of reasons they are less likely to take proactive measures and thus less likely to see naturopathic doctors. It is because of this that I think it's so important to learn more about Men's Health and be able to help address their problems when they do come in. The other piece is that education on Men's Health at CCNM is quite limited, with just some focus on the obvious culprits like prostate cancer, testicular cancer and maybe erectile dysfunction. Of course the male reproductive system is a lot less complicated than the female one, so there is less to learn about that. But I think that males have a lot of distinct issues when it comes to mental and emotional health, especially in the setting of North America. This is why I think it is great to have a week to focus on those aspects a bit more.

Last night Dr. Jason Clifford gave a talk on the feminine side of maleness. Unfortunately I couldn't go because of HEROs, but I think it was recorded so I'll get a chance to listen to it later on. Today there is an open forum on Men's Health at common time (we had a great discussion last year so I'm hoping for a good one again), and included is the men's service auction (I'm auctioning off so personal training, and all our proceeds will go to Movember!). Finally tonight Dr. Rajesh Ragbir will be giving a talk on male vulnerability and access to health, and I will be able to go this, a talk that I'm pretty excited about.

So that's all for now, hope you spend the week thinking about the health of your men and remembering that we are complex creatures and even though we don't show it, we have just as many emotional and spiritual aspects to ourselves as women.

A little late but here's the poster for Men's Health Week this year!