We’re jamming to tunes this morning - specifically, the 🍁 music that was recognized this past weekend at the 2024 Juno Awards. Highlights from the awards include:

• Nelly Furtado performing the biggest hits of her career

• Surrey's Karan Aujla being the first Punjabi artist to win the TikTok Juno Fan Choice Award

• Singer-songwriters Tegan and Sara receiving the Humanitarian Award for their efforts to support 2SLGBTQ+ youth.

☕️Postcall’s one-sip markets update:

Stocks aren’t starting this week as bullish as last week (when stocks raced to the highest point this year) after US Fed Chair Jerome Powell previewed a series of rate cuts. But one stock that’s rising is Digital World Acquisition Corp (the shell company that merged with Donald Trump’s Truth Social and started trading as DJT yesterday). It’s up about 16%, and Trump (who owns 58%) now has a stake valued at $4.6 billion — at least on paper.

Time for some stories!

Staying #Up2Date 🚨

1. Doping dangers

An observational study followed over a thousand young men who had used androgenic anabolic steroid (AAS). At follow-up, 2.8% of AAS users vs.1% of controls had died (hazard ratio, HR, of 2.8). Amongst AAS users, the HRs were 3.6 for unnatural deaths (i.e., accidents, violent crimes, or suicide) and 2.2 for natural deaths (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular-related deaths).

2. Maternal mortality miscalc

Maternal deaths have been under-reported for decades. In 2003, the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death added a question to identify pregnancy-associated deaths. A new study now suggests that many maternal deaths in the US have likely been misclassified as a result of this move. While maternal mortality in the US has increased - from 17 to 33 deaths per 100K births between 2018-2021 — a different methodology using a definition-based approach actually argues that these rates are lower in the U.S and that obstetrical complications are actually decreasing.

3. Which knee rehab is best: virtual vs. remote?

In a noninferiority trial, researchers in Australia randomized 394 adults with chronic knee pain to in-person vs. remote rehab. Both groups showed similar improvements in pain and function on standardized scales after 3 months (with similar outcomes at 9 months too!). This means you may be able to reassure your patients that getting remote physio will not compromise their outcomes.

👨‍💻Tech Bites

1: A couple years ago, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario warned Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill (Brampton, Ont.-based pediatrics specialist) about her tweets, including one saying vaccination for COVID-19 was unnecessary. This past Sunday, Elon Musk and X announced that it’s "proud to defend" Gill and pay off her remaining ~$150K in legal bills.

2: ⚖️ The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of maintaining an illegal monopoly over “performance smartphones” (by defining the market this way, Apple has over 65% of the market). The complaint alleges that Apple has made it hard for users to switch away from Apple products, thereby hurting consumers by keeping prices high and quality low. Even if the DOJ succeeds, finding an effective solution to address the alleged harms may be difficult.

3: ❤️‍🩹 Microsoft wants to help you prevent burnout — they filed a patent application for “well being assessment and mitigation”. This tech will supposedly use machine learning to watch behaviours and summarize them into a “well being score”. What’s the chance they add this into the Epic EHR?

Pig-ture Perfect Breakthrough  🐷

How scientists are organ-izing a new way for humans to receive transplants.

What happened? For the first time, surgeons have transplanted a kidney from a genetically modified pig into a living person. After a successful 4-hour procedure at Massachusetts General Hospital, the hospital has reported that he’s recovering well and should be allowed to be discharged soon. 

The 62-year-old patient was suffering from end-stage kidney disease.

Why it’s interesting: The organ came from a pig created by eGenesis using CRISPR-Cas9 tech. eGenesis pigs are bred with 69 genetic modifications to make them safe for humans. Some of these include inactivating retroviruses that are found in pigs to reduce the risk of infection, and adding human genes to make them more compatible.

eGenesis’ goal is to genetically modify pigs to provide kidneys, livers, hearts, and other organs to help with the shortage. (In 2023 it was reported that over 4,000 Canadians are on the donor list, while the US has over 100K.) 

But there are concerns surrounding the medical breakthrough. For example, some people wonder how the organ will hold up in the long run. All of the other patients who have received animal organs have died, leaving this patient as eGenesis’s only success. 

There’s also a question regarding the animals. How ethical is it to raise animals solely to slaughter them for human organ transplantation? Despite eGenesis’s accomplishment, this has still been left unanswered. 

Bottom line: eGenesis’s work is the first step towards potentially solving a huge health crisis in North America. But like most things practice makes perfect so we’ll be watching closely to see what comes next for this medical phenomenon.  

Notable Numbers 🔢

$4B: how much Doug Ford’s failed Bill 124 — legislation to impose wage restraint on the public sector — cost Ontario (so far). Bill 124 led to many nurses and healthcare workers quitting due to unsustainable levels of stress and burnout.

1970: the birth year cutoff for adults who should receive “at least one dose” of the measles vaccine vs. two doses. Federal guidance assumes that people born before 1970 have natural immunity, given how prevalent measles used to be.

108: unfilled family medicine spots in Ontario in the CaRMS match last week. This is up from 100 in 2023.

Postcall Picks ✅ 

💳️ Pay: for your property taxes, hydro bills, and insurance premiums on credit card and get points on stuff you wouldn’t normally be able to put on credit card. How? Check out the Triangle Mastercard, which lets you tap into Canadian Tire Financial Services. (The redemption rate isn’t that high, but it’s better than nothing!)

🛫 Travel: Doctors-on-tour has a CME + cultural travel trip planned to Sri Lanka this October 24 - November 10, 2024. They’re offering a tour of Colombo, Buddhist temples, and CME with Group Medical Director: Dr. Peter Bloch (who was our Postcall Baller last month).

💪 Learn: about the Pharmacare legislation and the next steps for improving access to medications in Canada, from Canadian Doctors for Medicare. The #BetterMedicare webinar is on Mar. 28th at 8 p.m. ET. Register here.

🤣 Laugh: at what we’d sound like, if lawyers were treated like doctors:

Job Opportunities 💼

Role: Anesthesiologist 

• Location: University Hospital of Northern BC (Prince George, BC)

• Compensation: $588,504

• Learn more

Role: General Cardiologist

• Location: Royal Inland Hospital (Kamloops, BC)

• Compensation: $400,000-$600,000

• Learn more

Role: Radiologist

• Location: The Ottawa Hospital (Ottawa, ON)

• Compensation: $400,000

• Learn more 

Share Postcall, Get Merch! 🐕

Share Postcall, rack up referrals, get merch. It’s that easy. Plus, you’ll get our eternal gratitude. Maybe we’ll name our next pet Shiba in your honour! 😜

Click here or share by copying and pasting this link: https://postcall.ca/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER