Tomorrow, it will snow, if the weather forecast is correct. This will make for an interesting Remembrance Day at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, where I live. I have been to the War Memorial in all weather, including snow, but I do not ever remember it snowing through the ceremony before, except for a …
If you are the parent of a teen who uses marijuana or a health professional looking for clear reasons to back up your pleas to a youth not to use marijuana, you can find it in the vaping crisis. To date in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported …
A common practice in the Monday group is to find out what people did on the weekend: what was fun, what was difficult, what helped you feel better, what made you feel worse. Also, most people can become engaged in this conversation and the topic lends itself to discussing behavioural activation which is one of …
Harm Reduction is a difficult topic to explain to people: parents, educators, lawmakers don’t always understand why I can be satisfied with a youth lowering their drug use when they really need to stop their drug use. Harm reduction can sound like a clinician is giving in – the second to last step before giving …
This book by Marne Venture, a well-known children’s author and blogger, is one of the Pros and Cons series of books put out by Focus Readers. Published in 2018, this book has the advantage of being recent and much of the information it contains is as up to date as it can be, given how …
“I’m not in the garden. I’m on a rock in the garden!” This statement was uttered with that assurance only a 5 year old has when they’ve discovered a loophole in the rule you’ve just set for them. There were lots of loophole-finding people out yesterday when my husband and I went for a short …
Last Thursday evening I gave a talk on cannabis at my university for Brain Health Awareness Week. I had an opportunity to speak alongside two colleagues – both distinguished researchers, while I am a clinician. My work is with patients and while I facilitate research as much as I can, it is not my strength. …
Since I’ve been reading about vaping, my patients have been expressing concern that I’m asking them as much about physical symptoms related to lung disease as I am about mental health. Last week, one regular patient quipped, “Hey, Dr. Beck, if I had problems breathing, my Dad would have me at the family doctor before …
After news reports of teens suffering severe lung damage from vaping in recent weeks, there has been a focus in the media about the risks of this new way of ingesting nicotine. Vaping is “less dangerous” than smoking, but this is a bit like saying one alligator is less dangerous than 3 alligators – it’s …
It is magic that makes a tale a fairy tale, but it takes a writing magician to make a fairy tale that “grown-ups” can believe in. That is what Naomi Novik does in Spinning Silver. This is a story in which three extraordinary women emerge from the ordinary women everyone believes them to be using …
