What Do Clinicians Need To Know To Better Manage Obesity?
Wednesday, December 2, 2015Given that the vast majority of clinicians have learnt little about managing obesity in their professional training (and even that may be an overstatement), one of the biggest challenges today is to train health professionals to help their patients better manage their obesity.
Now the Canadian Obesity Network has partnered with mdBriefcase, the largest provider of online continuing medical education for health professionals in Canada, to created online courses on obesity management.
In order to ensure that these courses meet the needs of the various groups of health professionals, the Canadian Obesity Network is now conducting a survey aimed at health professionals working in Canada.
What’s in it for you?
As a small token of appreciation, mdBriefcase is offering the 1st, 25th, 50th, 75th and 100th participant a $25 Starbucks or Petro Canada gift card!
What will happen with the information that is collected?
Answers will be collected and analyzed by the Canadian Obesity Network and mdBriefCase. This data will be kept secure and confidential and used for education development planning. Anonymised data will be used by the Canadian Obesity Network and mdBriefCase in undertaking the analysis and in preparing any published reports of the survey.
If you are a family physician or nurse practitioner – click here
If you are a specialist, nurse or allied healthcare provider (e.g. RD, OT, PT, social worker, etc.) – click here
If you are a Pharmacist – click here
And if you are a patient and wished there was something your health care provider knew about better helping you manage your obesity, please feel free to leave a comment.
@DrSharma
Vancouver, BC
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
I’ve followed your blog for several years, and the overall message I’ve come away with is that there’s no effective treatment for obesity short of bariatric surgery. So I’m curious about what information you intend to give medical practitioners. Is my impression of the situation in error? Is there an effective intervention they could offer?
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
I’m with Pat. For most people, behavioral interventions will only succeed if they devote their entire life to being thin. And it will come at a price: unrelenting hunger, food obsession, cold intolerance, infertility, depression, etc.
I think doctors need to take their duty seriously when it comes to medical intervention, even behavioral ones: First, do no harm. Would any doctor prescribe a pill as ineffective as weight loss strategies? A pill that, in half of the (rare) cases where it works, causes dramatic decreases in quality of life?
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
I’d like health professionals and those that run their facilities to acknowledge that we who have larger bodies exist – have chairs not jammed together and that are wider or without arms, have blood pressure cuffs that fit (I bring my own thigh cuff to use on my ample arm), gowns that fit, scales that accommodate, examining tables that are wider and not difficult to climb up on, etc. I am fortunate to have a doctor who respects me and is straightforward and tells me he has nothing to offer me except surgery, although there is a 2 year wait just to get a consultation. So glad I don’t get the “eat less and move more” bovine splatter that some people get.