A new knee for $30k

Dr. Erin Norris used to hide her multiple sclerosis to preserve her career as a rheumatologist. She was following an unspoken rule in medicine: either you practice at 100%, or you can’t practice at all. Yet one in five Canadian MDs self-identifies as having a disability. Now, Dr. Norris has rebuilt a career that works for her – all while challenging an ableist medical culture that pushes doctors with disabilities out the door.

Minnesota nurse Shane Tyson was frustrated by patients going without care because they couldn’t afford medication, and shaken by an ICE arrest at his hospital. Meanwhile, Canada needs nurses – and when Tyson saw B.C. was recruiting, he made the move to Nanaimo. Local volunteers Tod and Jocelyn Maffin have built an online community helping health-care workers like Shane move to Canada.

Gurleen Kaur Chahal is one of the inaugural students at Toronto Metropolitan University’s new Peel Region medical school, designed to serve the area’s diverse population. In this encore episode, she shares her determination to be part of the solution for the kinds of struggles her multigenerational Punjabi household has faced accessing care.

After 25+ years as a family physician, Dr. Fan-Wah Mang closed her practice because she burned out. Now, she’s at Humber River Hospital in Toronto, teaching the next generation of family doctors how to avoid the pitfalls that made her leave. In this encore episode, two of her residents also share what they’ll need to be a family physician long term, and it may surprise you.

When Ned Bell’s wife was recovering from cancer surgery at Vancouver General Hospital, the unappetizing food she was served left a bad taste in his mouth. So the five-star chef teamed up with her surgeon to rethink patient meals. In this encore episode, Dr. Brian Goldman visits Chef Bell to see how the “Planetary Health Menu” is improving patient health while reducing the carbon footprint of hospital food.

Allan Brooks tumbled down a ChatGPT rabbit hole after an innocuous question about pi. Three weeks and 7,000 prompts later, he emerged from a 300-hour spiral. In this encore episode, psychiatrist Dr. Keith Sakata, who examines the phenomenon dubbed "AI psychosis," says the built-in sycophancy of chatbots needs to change before more harm is done.

When he's not working in the ER, Dr. Nicholas Sparrow spends his spare time in a surprising way. He responds to critical threat-to-life calls over the vast landscape of B.C.’s southeast corner as a volunteer through the Kootenay Emergency Response Physicians Association (KERPA), a charity he created. In this encore episode, Dr. Brian Goldman rides along on one of Dr. Sparrow's shifts to learn how - and why - he does it.

How much would you pay to get your knee or hip replaced? Calgarian Linda Slater's knee pain became unbearable during her two-year wait to see an orthopedic surgeon. In this encore episode, we learn how she drained her retirement savings to pay $30,000 for a new knee at a private Toronto clinic. Dr. Rick Zarnett, an orthopedic surgeon who works out of both a private clinic and public hospital, says the system needs to improve so patients can get surgery sooner.

When Kyle Brymer went to the ER with altered speech, facial drooping, severe headaches and confusion, the doctor blamed his symptoms on his post-grad academic workload and even his partner Kirstie. In a few days, Kyle went back to the ER – and this time, the stroke was unmistakable. We’re re-airing this episode from last season, as strokes in young people are on the rise in Canada, with one in 20 affecting someone under the age of 45.

IDEAS, hosted by Nahlah Ayed is a daily podcast that explores how ideas over place and time shape our world.In the days before her medically-assisted death, journalist Elaine Dewar made it her mission to finish writing her book revealing ignored Canadian history. For more than three years, the author investigated how Canada's health care system cruelly mistreated Indigenous people — including forcing them to use segregated hospitals. Dewar's extensive research uncovers not only a shameful past. It also reveals that our collective obliviousness to it was deliberately manufactured.You can find more episodes of IDEAS wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/IDEASxWCBA