Home Page - Healthy Debate Healthy Debate Search Health topics Debates Special Series All topics All articles Most popular today COVID-19 (573) Vaccines (147) Opioids (57) Cancer (179) Addiction (191) Racism (45) Alcohol (26) Infectious Disease (696) Marijuana (24) Tobacco (26) Aging (230) Dementia (53) Long-Term Care (92) Children and Youth (297) Education (426) Medical Education (218) Depression (30) Misinformation (117) Nursing (35) End of Life (196) In Memoriam (5) MAiD (36) Environment (74) Climate Change (39) About Subscribe Aug 13, 2026 by Linda Miller Don Juzwishin How to make information accessible across care pathways A recent article in Healthy Debate rightly drew attention to the fragmentation of Canada’s health information environment and to the burden this can place on patients, clinicians, public health and system learning. However, the issue should not be framed as if success requires a single, seamless pan-Canadian record available in every setting. Opinion Aug 12, 2026 by Hanan Hammad Exercise will help any healing process’: Managing the pain of peripheral neuropathy Peripheral neuropathy, the chronic nerve illness caused by conditions such as diabetes, cancer, infections and autoimmune diseases, was thought to be completely irreversible. But recent case studies suggest early onset of neuropathy has a chance to be reversed using something everyone can afford: exercise. Opinion Aug 11, 2026 by Alykhan Abdulla The dog days of summer are a good time to reflect on our values The “dog days of summer” offer Canadians time to disconnect from a harried life and an opportunity to reflect before reacting. Parliament is quiet, our attachment to the frenetic news cycle is unshackled and, for a few precious weeks, the yoyoing of outrage and frustration becomes a distant call of the lake loon. Opinion Aug 6, 2026 by Sylvia Okonofua Forty years after the Ottawa Charter, why do we still struggle to act on what we know? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, one of the most influential public health documents ever written. Adopted by delegates from 38 countries at the World Health Organization's First International Conference on Health Promotion, the Charter fundamentally transformed how we think about health by challenging the notion that health is created primarily in hospitals and clinics. Instead, it argued that health is shaped by the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. Opinion Aug 5, 2026 by Samir C. Grover Canada promised to watch its doctors train. We never did. AI could change that In 2017, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada launched Competence by Design, the most consequential reform of Canadian residency training in a generation. The premise was simple: we can define all the elements that a graduating physician should know or do in practice, and we should only graduate them when a supervisor has actually watched them do the work competently and safely. The framework broke training into discrete clinical tasks, such as managing a patient with chest pain, that a trainee must be observed performing before a supervisor signs off. Nearly a decade later, the architecture is in place. The observation is not. Opinion Aug 4, 2026 by Tara Kiran Every jurisdiction in Canada needs a Primary Care Act Just over a year ago, the government of Ontario passed landmark legislation that puts primary care – the care most often delivered by family doctors – at the foundation of the health-care system. Opinion Jul 30, 2026 by Michelle Cohen Cancer pseudoscience and the cultural moment The word “cancer” strikes a particular kind of fear in people’s hearts and creates a thriving market for cancer scams. If you search “cancer treatments” on Facebook (one of the first prompts that appear if you type “cancer” into the search bar), you’re immediately fed videos on alternative therapies and recommended groups discussing “natural” versus conventional cancer care. Opinion Jul 29, 2026 by Kelly Cobey It’s time to get mad about your health data When my mom moved across the province to be closer to her grandkids (and I like to think, me), she faced a challenge many Canadians know all too well: finding a family doctor. But once she did, she faced another problem. It turned out that some of her medical history hadn’t made the trip with her. Jul 28, 2026 by Maddie O’Connor If diet is a key to health, why aren’t we focusing on nutrition in medical schools? “Why am I not being taught this?” It’s a question Amardeep Mangat says medical learners frequently ask after rotating through his Lifestyle Medicine clinic, where they witness patients improving their chronic disease management through nutrition, exercise, sleep optimization and behavioural interventions – and sometimes deprescribing medications altogether. Opinion Jul 23, 2026 by Jennifer Diamond At a breaking point: Workforce sustainability in home and community care needs smarter HR The workforce pressure on our increasingly strained health-care system is not a Human Resources (HR) problem; it’s a human problem that affects every single person in the chain of care, from physicians and Personal Support Workers to the administrative teams who hold it all together. Opinion Jul 22, 2026 by Patricia Trbovich Rolf Gronas You can’t have patient safety without good system design In modern health care, we still behave as though safety is primarily a function of individual vigilance. When something goes wrong, health-care providers will instinctively ask “what could I have done differently?” instead of addressing a more uncomfortable question “how did our systems make this mistake more likely?” This is understandable as many enter the health-care profession firmly grounded in the principle of “first, do no harm.” Opinion Jul 21, 2026 by Nkechi Ikeaba Addiction is not a moral failure: Why harm reduction matters During a rural posting in West Africa, I once saw people at a religious centre locked up, chained to poles and subjected to harsh conditions because they were “addicted to drugs,” brought by their family members who believed they were “demon possessed” or needed “spiritual deliverance.” I remember being shocked and moved to tears at these attempts to detoxify or rehabilitate – but without evidence-based care, compassion, dignity or an understanding of the illness itself. Jul 16, 2026 by Tess Lanzarotta Canada must take the lead on hepatitis C vaccine research Hepatitis C kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year; in Canada it results in more lost years of life than any other infectious disease. An effective treatment exists, but it is unavailable to many because of cost and other access obstacles. And there is no vaccine. Canada has the researchers, the policy framework and the capacity to help change that. Jul 15, 2026 by Danyaal Raza Sheryl Spithoff If AI scribes were the test run, Supply Ontario has lessons to learn In May, Ontario’s Auditor General released a special report on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Ontario government, including medical “AI scribes” that are increasingly being used by doctors, including us. While headlines and coverage focused mainly on so-called scribe hallucinations of these AI note-taking systems, that wasn’t the biggest news in the report. Jul 14, 2026 by Tara Moroz ‘Authentic’ health advice isn’t the same as evidence-based Scrolling through social media, it’s easy to feel like health advice is everywhere. A creator shares a routine that “changed everything.” Another explains how they fixed their gut health. A clinician posts quick tips between patient visits. The tone is confident, personal – and above all, authentic. Jul 9, 2026 by Margaret Hess Naomi Berlyne Low-income seniors losing out on government pensions Many low-income seniors are standing on the edge of a financial precipice. As family physicians and health promoters at St. Michael’s Family Health Team, we do everything we can to support our patients through these challenges. But for every person we help, thousands of others fall through the cracks with no one to catch them. Jul 8, 2026 by Fallan Curtis Keep the doors open: What can Alberta’s addiction policy learn from youth care Alberta does not have to choose between recovery and harm reduction. A serious recovery-oriented system would protect both, investing in treatment beds and recovery communities, but also in the low-barrier services that keep people alive long enough to use them. Jul 7, 2026 by Mohamed Elsayed Elghobashy Kanish Baskaran Edwin Wong The cost of neurophobia in Canadian medical training We have mapped the stars, descended into the ocean depths, yet the human brain remains one of the greatest mysteries humans have encountered. Opinion Jun 26, 2026 by Lana Cho The healing reach of art: Creative insights from participants and practitioners If we are serious about improving health outcomes, particularly for populations navigating systemic barriers, creative expression should not be treated as an add-on. It should be recognized as a practical, accessible component of care. Opinion Jun 21, 2026 by Christen Kong What if your health-care team included an artist? Imagine a world where creativity is prescribed alongside medicine – where artists collaborate with doctors to heal body, mind and spirit. Opinion Jun 18, 2026 by Jasmine Kaur Sidhu Art is health infrastructure: Rethinking gender-based violence responses for newcomer women For newcomer survivors of gender-based domestic violence, expressive arts are not decorative. They are a practical, culturally responsive component of recovery. Opinion Jun 15, 2026 by Christen Kong Beyond attachment: The role of community artists in newcomer primary care Community artists help humanize both health care and settlement experiences by creating accessible, relational entry points. Opinion Jun 10, 2026 by Esty-Jo Asare Andrea Charise Community arts in focus: Evidence of impact on newcomer social and mental wellness For newcomers to Canada, creativity isn’t just a pastime – it can be a lifeline. Opinion Jun 23, 2026 by Maha Kamil Children left waiting: The need to update emergency department triage Long emergency wait times are now widely recognized as a structural problem. But children should not deteriorate unnoticed in emergency department waiting areas. Opinion Jun 23, 2026 by Homira Osman Stacey Lintern Is Canada’s rare disease promise collapsing? Canadians are increasingly finding themselves in an impossible position: treatments could be approved yet remain inaccessible. Friedreich ataxia (FA) has become a powerful example of that reality. Latest articles How to make information accessible across care pathways Exercise will help any healing process’: Managing the pain of peripheral neuropathy The dog days of summer are a good time to reflect on our values Forty years after the Ottawa Charter, why do we still struggle to act on what we know? Canada promised to watch its doctors train. We never did. AI could change that Every jurisdiction in Canada needs a Primary Care Act Cancer pseudoscience and the cultural moment It’s time to get mad about your health data If diet is a key to health, why aren’t we focusing on nutrition in medical schools? At a breaking point: Workforce sustainability in home and community care needs smarter HR Special Series Highlights Feature Stitched Together This series is a deep dive into the lives and working conditions of health-care professionals across Canada. It includes six profiles that explore the challenges, triumphs and priorities not only of our the health-care system as a whole, but of the workers who support it. Special Series Technology, transformation and health care In partnership with AMS Healthcare, Healthy Debate is publishing a series of solutions-focused articles on …