White Coat, Black Art on CBC Radio

About this podcast

CBC Radio's Dr. Brian Goldman takes listeners through the swinging doors of hospitals and doctors' offices, behind the curtain where the gurney lies.

White Coat, Black Art on CBC Radio

Episodes

2021
SPECIAL| Prescription for Resilience: Coping with Covid - Stories of Loss
Almost a year into the pandemic Canadians are still coming to terms with what they have lost, whether it’s the loss of loved ones or the life we had before the pandemic. This week White Coat, Black Art explores the stories of Canadians who have found ways to be resilient in light of that loss. In the final installment of the special series “Prescription for Resilience: Coping with Covid,” we feature stories that will lift you up and make you recognise the inner strength that we all have.
February 26, 2021
37 min
RJ's Story - Eating disorders, kids & COVID-19
RJ was an average teen who loved playing hockey, football and basketball. Then the pandemic changed everything. All of RJ's sports stopped, so he started exercising and began dieting on his own. An eating disorder soon followed.
February 19, 2021
27 min
SPECIAL | Prescription for Resilience: Coping with COVID
Canadians reveal how they’ve coped with loss and isolation during the pandemic, in big ways and small. From a working mom who got COVID and a CFL player who lost his season, to a 97-year old who finds hope in daily walks and much more, this is your Prescription for Resilience.
February 12, 2021
37 min
People with disabilities need to move to the front of the line
Dr. Brian Goldman talks to Jeff Preston, Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. Jeff was born with a severe form of muscular dystrophy. If he gets COVID19, he’s likely to die. He says that Canada needs to prioritize people with disabilities now. Donna Thomson’s 32-year-old son Nicholas has cerebral palsy and needs round-the-clock care. Donna says that excluding extremely vulnerable people like her son is ableism plain and simple.
February 4, 2021
27 min
Doctors say they'll continue to speak out despite paying a price
Recently some high profile doctors say they've been targeted for criticizing the Ontario government's pandemic response. Two of those doctors, Dr. Nathan Stall and Dr. Jennifer Kwan, join Dr. Brian Goldman to explain why they see advocacy as part of their job and why they are committed to speaking out, even when there may be professional and personal consequences.
January 29, 2021
27 min
Who gets ICU treatment in a pandemic surge?
Dr. Brian Goldman talks with Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital, and Dr. Marco Vergano, an anesthesiologist and ICU doctor in Turin, Italy about what happens when doctors are forced to make difficult choices about who gets critical care and who does not.
January 22, 2021
27 min
Healthcare workers pushback on Covid-19 vaccine
Why some health-care workers might refuse or are hesitant to get the vaccine and how we can change that.
January 15, 2021
27 min
What will the post-pandemic world look like?
In his latest book, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, Dr. Christakis takes a close look at Covid-19. But the good doctor also gives us a surprisingly detailed prediction of what comes afterwards.
January 8, 2021
27 min
2020
Pandemic got you down? Try watching Tiger King or Dr. Pimple Popper.
Dr. Brian Goldman assembled a panel of three health-care professionals who share his love for binge-watching shows online and on cable television. Here are their go-to binge-watching escapes from the stress of the pandemic.
December 30, 2020
27 min
The Vaccine Whisperer: How a Quebec program is convincing vaccine hesitant parents to immunize their newborns, and what it could mean for COVID-19 vaccines
While the world is celebrating the arrival of new vaccines to combat COVID-19, there's another issue public health officials are worried about: vaccine hesitancy. Even before the pandemic hit, the World Health Organization had singled out vaccine hesitancy as one of the top threats to global health. This week, Dr. Brian Goldman takes us to Sherbrooke, Quebec where a unique program aimed at new parents is reducing levels of hesitancy around childhood inoculations and increasing the rate of vaccination. The initiatiive, called PromoVac, was created by Dr. Arnaud Gagneur, a physician from France who was tapped by the Quebec government to test the program in local hospitals. After losing a newborn patient in France to meningitis because the mother was not aware that a vaccine was available, he set out to raise awareness and address concerns parents had about vaccines. PromoVac puts a new kind of healthcare work on maternity wards. Vaccine counsellors meet with new parents sometimes hours after their child is born to speak to them about vaccines, without any judgement of their views, regardless of whether they are anti-vaccine. Dr. Goldman speaks to Dr. Gagneur, vaccine counsellor Mathieu Savard and a new parent on the maternity ward. Gagneur believes the tenets of the program could be used outside of the maternity ward, to help address concerns about vaccines, particularly the new COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Noni MacDonald, a pediatirician and world-known vaccine expert agrees, and says the WHO has already adopted guidelines for best practices that use the techniques of motivational interviewing -- the core of the PromoVac program.
December 18, 2020
27 min
Fifteen Minutes with Dr. Fauci
Since the Coronavirus began spreading across North America in March, Dr. Anthony Fauci has become one of the most recognizable figures in the world. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he's guided America through the pandemic and weathered slings and arrows along the way. This week, (after months of waiting) Dr. Brian Goldman finally had the chance to talk to Dr. Fauci -- for 15 minutes (he's a busy guy). They talked about everything from the latest vaccine breakthroughs and Fauci's concerns about vaccine hesitancy and the anti-science sentiment fomented by the current president, to his hopes about working with a new president. He also expresses his support for front-line health care workers and reveals he's been going on rounds in a local hospital which treats COVID patients to understand what the situation is from the ground up. ALSO: Reaction to last week's program that explored the root causes of rising COVID-19 cases in Brampton, Ontario. And a sneak peek at next week's show, an in-the-field look at a Quebec-based program that is successfully countering vaccine hesitancy in new parents, and how it might be used to convince people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
December 11, 2020
27 min
What's really behind rising numbers in one of Canada's COVID hotspots?
Brampton, just west of Toronto, has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in Ontario if not Canada. Last month in one neighbourhood, nearly one in five COVID tests were positive. That’s five times the provincial average. There's been much speculation about why the virus is spreading, and this week, White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman goes to Brampton to find out more about that. His guide is Gurpreet Malhotra, the CEO of Indus, a non-profit community service agency that's helping people cope during the pandemic. He tells Dr. Goldman that Brampton's high COVID numbers are largely related to working and living conditions that put people at risk. Brampton is one of the most ethnically diverse spots in Canada, and its large South Asian and Black communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The area is a transportation hub, anchored by Pearson airport, which is surrounded by warehouses that ship goods all over the country. Residents who work in those industries are often considered essential workers who have trouble physically distancing on the job as packers, drivers or cleaners. Some are also new immigrants, who live in multi-generational families, where English is not their first language. On their tour of the city, they see evidence of cultural barriers, such as English-only signs about the virus. Malhotra believes chronic underfunding of health services has made people in his community more vulnerable to the virus, because they can't get culturally appropriate care.
December 4, 2020
27 min
Fear of racism deters many Indigenous people from seeking medical treatment, says health-care leader
Indigenous Canadians are avoiding going to the doctor or seeking care in hospitals, says the president of The Indigenous Physicians Association. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact, but there's also another potentially deadly factor: racism. "People are fearing that they will be treated in a racist manner, or not receive the standard of care that a non-Indigenous person would," Dr. Cornelia (Nel) Wieman, tells Dr. Brian Goldman. Wieman, who is also a psychiatrist and senior medical officer at the First Nations Health Authority in Vancouver says the death of Joyce Echaquan has contributed to that fear. Echaquan, a 37-year old Atikamekw woman live-streamed her final moments at hospital Joliette, Quebec which revealed staff berating her. Dr. Wieman says the refusal of Quebec's premier to acknowledge systemic racism in the wake of that incident is a barrier to progress and she's concerned the inquiry into Echaquan's death will not probe the root causes of what happened to her. Despite that, and the racism she's faced in her own career, she's still hopeful progress can be made. She says one step forward would be to hold authorities at a higher level responsible for actions of healthcare workers who prove to be racist. She says Canada needs to increase the availability of cultural safety training for health-care workers, which was featured on a previous episode of White Coat, Black Art. We also speak to Gregory Buffalo, a Cree man from Fort McMurray who contacted White Coat, Black Art after listening to that program several times. He tells us why that show moved him, and shares his family's experiences dealing with racism in the healthcare system.
November 27, 2020
27 min
Canada's migrant farm workers, COVID-19 and a clinic-on-wheels
Dr Brian Goldman visits a mobile health clinic that treats migrant workers on Schuyler Farms in Simcoe, Ontario. The farm was recently the site of a COVID-19 outbreak. Brian takes a look at why seasonal farm workers are so vulnerable to the virus, and how this innovative clinic-on-wheels is an important step in providing much-needed health care for farm workers.
November 20, 2020
27 min
Cultural Safety: Making healthcare safe for Indigenous patients
When you get sick and call an ambulance or you make your way to the local ER, the assumption is you're heading to a safe place. They'll greet you, treat you and heal you. But it's not something all Canadians can take for granted -- we were yet again reminded of that yet again in September, when Joyce Equachan, a 37-year old mother of five and member of the Atikamekw Nation, recorded and made public racist taunts she endured from staff at a hospital in Quebec. This week, White Coat Black Art revisits a show about the San'yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Program in BC, which aims to teach health-care workers to recognize and respect the history of Indigenous peoples, so they can access care without fear of being discriminated against. "It's the hardest conversation we can have as Canadians," says Cheryl Ward, who helped design the course. Dr. Marcia Anderson, a public health physician with the WInnipeg Regional Health Authority also speaks to the show about why she brought the course to Winnipeg, and her own family's experience with racism in the health-care system.
November 13, 2020
27 min
Manitoba surge
Dr Brian Goldman looks at the reasons behind a surge in cases of COVID19 in Manitoba and how it’s affecting indigenous communities.
November 6, 2020
27 min
Why this year's flu shot campaign may be a dress rehearsal for a COVID-19 vaccine
Across the country Canadians have been scrambling to get their annual flu shot -- especially after being told by public health officials that it's vital we stay healthy during the pandemic to reduce the strain on ICUs and healthcare providers. But the high demand and lags in distributing the vaccine mean that many pharmacies and doctors are out of flu shots and are waiting for more to arrive. This week White Coat Black Art looks at why the flu shot is hard to come by this year and what that might mean for a possible roll out of a COVID- 19 vaccine. We hear from Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a family doctor and vaccine researcher in Toronto, who says the wait for the flu shot can have ramifications for people who are at higher risk. She says inefficiencies in the system, including waste, could be addressed if Canada developed a national vaccine registry using barcodes that are already on most vaccines. Dr. Monika Dutt, the medical officer of health in Newfoundland, tells us how that province is managing an ambitious goal to vaccinate 85 percent of its population against the flu, compared to 30 percent in previous years. Sheli Dattani, the Director of Practice Development for the Canadian Pharmacist's Association says pharmacists are also having to turn patients away in some parts of the country because of high demand for the shot this year. While she's confident that Canadians will get the vaccine eventually, she says it's evidence that there's more work to be done to ensure a smooth rollout of any COVID-19 vaccine
October 30, 2020
27 min
Being a medical officer of health during a pandemic
A conversation with Dr. Deena Hinshaw – Alberta’s Chief Medical Health Officer – and Dr. Eileen de Villa – Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health.
October 23, 2020
27 min
Cervical cancer screening advocate’s dying wishes start to take shape
Karla Van Kessel died of complications caused by cervical cancer on Feb. 17. Until the day she died, the London, Ont. mother of two fought for improved measures to prevent cervical cancer. She spoke to White Coat, Black Art about her missed diagnosis more than a year ago, after the cancer returned for a second time. Her husband and sister join Dr. Goldman to talk about her legacy and how her efforts are making a difference when it comes screening and how women are notified of test results.
October 16, 2020
27 min
COVID Confusion
For a lot of Canadians, the COVID-19 message is getting increasingly muddled. Dr. Caroline Quach and Dr. Prabhat Jha, both infectious disease experts, talk to Dr. Brian Goldman about cutting through our pandemic perplexity.
October 9, 2020
27 min

White Coat, Black Art on CBC Radio

About this podcast

Categories

About this podcast

Categories

White Coat, Black Art on CBC Radio

Episodes

SPECIAL| Prescription for Resilience: Coping with Covid - Stories of Loss

RJ's Story - Eating disorders, kids & COVID-19

SPECIAL | Prescription for Resilience: Coping with COVID

People with disabilities need to move to the front of the line

Doctors say they'll continue to speak out despite paying a price

Who gets ICU treatment in a pandemic surge?

Healthcare workers pushback on Covid-19 vaccine

What will the post-pandemic world look like?

Pandemic got you down? Try watching Tiger King or Dr. Pimple Popper.

The Vaccine Whisperer: How a Quebec program is convincing vaccine hesitant parents to immunize their newborns, and what it could mean for COVID-19 vaccines

Fifteen Minutes with Dr. Fauci

What's really behind rising numbers in one of Canada's COVID hotspots?

Fear of racism deters many Indigenous people from seeking medical treatment, says health-care leader

Canada's migrant farm workers, COVID-19 and a clinic-on-wheels

Cultural Safety: Making healthcare safe for Indigenous patients

Manitoba surge

Why this year's flu shot campaign may be a dress rehearsal for a COVID-19 vaccine

Being a medical officer of health during a pandemic

Cervical cancer screening advocate’s dying wishes start to take shape

COVID Confusion