It is definitely a mistake for students to wait around for their professors to put any effort into providing this kind of valuable advisement and mentoring, because quite frankly, this is not something the university administration expects or requires its academic faculty members to do. It is simply not in a professor’s job description. via DIY...

Continue reading

Is Palliative Care in Canada fully integrated into the health care system that it allows every end-of-life care patient to receive the comfortable measures to face death? Progress has been made of services available to Canadians, but unfortunately the answer is: No. Most people would prefer dying at home alongside with close family members, however...

Continue reading

TB – it’s a disease you might think has been eradicated if you live in North America … until you apply to volunteer at a hospital. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a bacterium that can cause a contagious disease called tuberculosis (TB), where transmission occurs through breathing, coughing, and sneezing of infected people. A challenge with this...

Continue reading

WHAT ARE VITAMINS? Vitamins are essential nutrients needed by the body in small amounts, to allow the body to grow, develop and function normally. Although our body can make some of its own vitamins, we get the majority of the vitamins we need from the food we eat every day1. In total, there are 13...

Continue reading

Throughout graduate studies and into a research career, software, internet sites, and digital tools are required for effective communication of scientific discovery. Here are five of my favourite, some of their competitors and examples of their application. R  Everyone has their favourite statistics package; I use R. Statistica is another I have tried with a...

Continue reading

TO ALL MEDICAL SCHOOL STUDENTS & MED LAB STUDENTS & OTHER HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS: I just discovered the most amazing learning tool ever, that I have to share all of its glory to you all. Friends, you just have to sign up for SKETCHYMEDICAL. It provides multiple curriculum of online sketches (or stories) to aid...

Continue reading

[Featured Image Credit: Lendingmemo.com.] Rewinding back to my second year of university, I recall telling the Science career advisor that my biggest fear would to be to come out of university with no job waiting for me the minute the calendar would turn its page to May 1st. Fast forward to the end of my undergraduate journey and...

Continue reading

“It’s the dose that kills” is a key foundation in studying toxicology – even in the case of the chemical, water. But how do researchers discover the dose that hurts, but doesn’t kill? Toxins can be categorized by their effects on the body, sometimes called end points. These include: Carcinogen Genotoxin Mutagen Neurotoxin Immunotoxin Modulator of...

Continue reading

As air quality is an increasingly concern for many people, especially in urban cities, I wanted to discuss the how doctors diagnosis a person with asthma using the most common technique in the North America, a procedure called spirometry1. Spirometry is a breathing test that uses a spirometer to measure lung volume and how well...

Continue reading

[Featured Image Credit: Eric Martin] Do you know what this past Monday was? It was ‘Blue Monday’. What is Blue Monday? Blue Monday, the Monday in the last week of January, is a term coined by health officials for the most depressing day of the year. Why? It’s due to multiple reasons including: Bills needing to be paid...

Continue reading