Developing a patient toolkit for opioid use and management through co-creation.

Canada has been experiencing an opioid use crisis, and urgent efforts are being made to stem the tide. With funding support from Health Canada, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) recently developed a series of asynchronous online bilingual modules to educate key players across the medical education spectrum on chronic pain and opioid use. The curriculum for the modules which informed the development of the Patient-Physician Partnership Toolkit was co-created through an authentic collaboration between healthcare professionals (HCPs), and patient subject matter experts who were patients with lived experience.

Experience of introducing an electronic health records station in an objective structured clinical examination to evaluate medical students’ communication skills in Canada: a descriptive study.

Purpose: There is limited literature related to the assessment of electronic medical record (EMR)-related competencies. To address this gap, this study explored the feasibility of an EMR objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) station to evaluate medical students’ communication skills by psychometric analyses and standardized patients’ (SPs) perspectives on EMR use in an OSCE.

Methods: An OSCE station that incorporated the use of an EMR was developed and pilot-tested in March 2020.

The impact of learner involvement in emergency department patient assessments on short-term return visits requiring hospital admission: a cross-sectional study.

Purpose: Learners, either medical students or residents, often perform the initial assessment of patients visiting the emergency department (ED). It is unclear, however, if learners affect the rate of short-term unscheduled return visits. The objective of this study was to determine if the involvement of learners in ED visits increases the rate of return visits.

Presentation and outcomes of necrotizing soft tissue infections.

Background: Necrotizing soft tissue infections (NSTIs) are aggressive infections associated with significant morbidity, including amputation and organ failure, and high mortality. The rapid progression and significant risk of morbidity and mortality associated with NSTIs makes quick diagnosis and treatment critical. The objective of this study was to determine the presentation of patients diagnosed with NSTIs and their in-hospital outcomes.

Constrictive pericarditis associated with atypical antipsychotics.

We report the successful surgical intervention in a case of constrictive pericarditis after long-term use of atypical antipsychotics. Pericarditis developed in our patient with a longstanding history of schizophrenia treated with atypical antipsychotics. Pericardiectomy was undertaken, and the patient's presenting symptom of shortness of breath resolved subsequently with an uneventful postoperative course.

Successful Intraoperative Reversal of Heparin With Factor VII in a Patient With Protamine Reaction.

Factor VII has been utilized to treat post-operative bleeding after cardiac surgery refractory to other intervention. We report the case of a patient who developed intractable bleeding after a severe protamine reaction following emergency repair of type A aortic dissection and was successfully treated with factor VII.

Robotic coronary artery bypass for aberrant right coronary artery stenosis.

Anomalous coronary arteries that course between the aorta and pulmonary artery are subject to compressive forces and can manifest angina, myocardial infarction and sudden death. The current report presents a young, female patient who presented with a short duration of severe, rapidly progressive angina despite optimal medical therapy. Combined computed tomography and myocardial perfusion scanning identified an anomalous dominant right coronary artery that appeared kinked at its origin between the aorta and main pulmonary artery.

Introduction of a novel teaching paradigm for head and neck anatomy.

Introduction: Didactic head and neck anatomy teaching has been replaced by a novel self-directed, multimodal, and multidisciplinary approach at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry (SSMD).

Objectives: To describe the use of a novel teaching paradigm at SSMD and to enable readers to determine how this methodology may benefit medical students at other academic institutions and disciplines.

Design: Prospective cohort study.