Part two of our series on cancer previvors - the growing number of people who through genetic testing live knowing it’s highly probable that one day they’ll get cancer.

The stories of two women who are cancer previvors. Both Jordyn and Anne had family members with breast cancer. Both got genetic testing and found out they too carried genes that gave them very high odds of getting cancer too. Both of these women decided to deal with the risk preemptively by having surgery.

In Ontario’s Renfrew County, one in four people don’t have a primary caregiver. But an innovative program where community paramedics do house calls is helping take care of patients so they don’t need to go to the ER. And it just got permanent provincial funding.

Alberta allows pharmacists to prescribe medications for a wide variety of ailments. Dr. Brian Goldman visits a pharmacist in that province to ask how it's working out.

The hit TV show 'The Good Doctor' is about a surgeon on the autism spectrum. But JJ Mracek is the real deal. The resident physician has finally found her calling in pathology where she can use her super power of pursuing justice. But she had to overcome severe setbacks in medical school and a rough residency in Internal Medicine, almost quitting the profession altogether.

The Acute Hospital At Home program in Oxford, England keeps patients in their own homes, who might otherwise be admitted to hospital. Professor Dan Lasserson takes Dr. Brian Goldman on the road to show how they bring effective and safe hospital care right into patients’ homes.

Like Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, the UK’s National Health Service is in crisis. Overcrowded ERs are groaning with patients, there aren’t enough hospital beds and people are paying for some elective surgeries at private facilities. Nurses, ambulance workers and junior doctors are striking. Dr. Brian Goldman takes a guided tour of a hospital in Reading, England to hear their lessons for Canada.

85-year-old Ron Robert graduated from King's University College at Western University last fall despite being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He's fit and wiry with a strong handgrip. He’s also got a surprising grip on living with dementia. His insight may help us understand a bit more about how to live with this terrible disease.

We think nothing today of calling healthcare workers “front line workers,” engaged in a “battle” against disease. But the roots of the war metaphor in medicine go a long way back ⁠— entrenched by pop culture icons like the TV show M*A*S*H and Hawkeye’s army. Dr. Jillian Horton explores a less heroic but healthier work environment for doctors and health professionals. Hear more IDEAS episodes where you get your podcasts.

The impact of delayed surgery on Nathan Gilson. He’s a sixteen-year old whose surgery to correct severe scoliosis was postponed five times.

The federal government has offered billions to help fund an ailing healthcare system. Help can’t come soon enough for a system that many say is in a state of crisis, if not collapse. Take home care. Nearly one million Canadians rely on it and another half a million will need it within the decade. But the care people are receiving is far less than what they need. We go into three people's homes to bring you their stories.

Scott Hedlund and David Broman design, build, fit and fix prosthetic appliances like artificial limbs. They talk about the challenges and joys of their jobs.

A look at virtual medical appointments. The pendulum is swinging back to in-person visits. But some Canadians say virtual clinics are filling a huge and growing gap in our health care system.

Primary care providers don’t always recognize menopause symptoms for what they are, focusing instead on whether they’re a sign of a more serious problem. And not all know that menopausal hormone therapy is a safe and effective treatment for many women. We explain why that’s the case, and the range of treatments that can help women.

Women who have had troubling health experiences say perimenopause and menopause should be recognized and treated faster because it would reduce needless suffering. Four women share their stories and offer ideas about what should change in the health-care system to improve the experience for others.

Dr. Brian Goldman visits Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon. It's Saskatchewan's only safe consumption site for people using illicit drugs -- and it receives zero funding from the province.

The CBC’s Julianne Hazlewood takes us on a familiar journey that for her is filled with uncertainty and peril. Julianne is in the late stages of pregnancy. She also has epilepsy. For additional support, she joined a research program called The Lullaby Project. It paired her with a musician to help her write and record a song to soothe her baby, and her fears.

We recently did an episode on White Coat Black Art on sports betting addiction, which is on the rise in Canada, and the enormous physical and mental toll it can have. CBC’s The Fifth Estate went to the UK to see how sports betting is playing out there and it’s a cautionary tale for Canada.

Millions of Canadians don’t have a family doctor or primary care provider. Dr. Peter Lin, a family physician and a director of the Canadian Heart Research Centre, spells out practical ways people can take charge of their health when they're searching for a family doctor. [Adapted from a popular episode of The Dose.]

19-year-old Iain White went from serving meals to residents at a long-term care centre to becoming their confidante in the depth of the pandemic. He was nominated as one of White Coat, Black Art’s health-care heroes. We include an update with him now that he’s in a recreation therapy program.

A visit to Saskatoon's Sherbrooke Community Centre where grade-six students spend their school day learning and getting to know the residents.

Ketamine helped one police officer get through a childhood trauma. Some experts say psychedelics could help people with PTSD but much more research is needed.

Brian Goldman and producer Jeff Goodes ride along with TAIBU, a mobile crisis response team in Scarborough that provides a non-police response to urgent mental health crises in the community.

Saskatchewan has lost so many of its family care doctors in the last year that 200,000 "orphaned" patients are relying on walk-in clinics to get medical attention. Legends Medical Clinic in Warman is in the middle of the crisis, trying to meet the needs of all who seek their walk-in services but patients often wait for hours to see a doctor.

In December 2019, Jennifer Fotheringham was stuck in traffic on the Queensway in Ottawa. She heard a White Coat Black Art episode about women in their forties dying of breast cancer, in part because they don’t get access to screening mammograms. She credits that episode with saving her life.

An intimate conversation with Alex Munter, President and CEO of CHEO in Ottawa. Like other pediatric hospitals across Canada, CHEO is bursting at the seams trying to cope with a tridemic of COVID, RSV and flu.

Charles Kinch searches for answers in the death of his wife Leslie Kissel from uterine cancer.

Now that single-event sports betting is taking off in Canada, ads and incentives are encouraging people to make a wager. But a recovering sport gambling addict and gambling counsellor worry it’s easier than ever to get dangerously hooked. And they want way more done to limit advertising and support treatment.

Susie Goulding speaks out about her own experience with long Covid and how that made her an advocate for others like her.

Polio is making a comeback around the world and falling vaccine rates in Canada make us vulnerable to a disease that was once close to eradication. Miki Boleen, an 83-year-old polio survivor, has made it her mission to urge parents to get their infants vaccinated as routine immunization rates slip.

Broadway star and long-time dancer Catherine Wreford Ledlow was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013. But that hasn’t stopped her from living life to the fullest. She continues to be involved in film and theatre productions and advocates for more brain cancer research, while raising two young kids. And…she just won Amazing Race Canada. We’ll have an update with her on how she’s doing now.

Shauna Pinkerton is waging a one-person campaign to save lives by passing out fentanyl testing strips, naloxone kits and safe drug paraphernalia, and sometimes by being there when people overdose. The people she is trying to save aren’t her clients. They’re her friends and sometimes her family.

Dr. Chris Applewhaite is a family doctor on Salt Spring Island in BC, a place where nearly half of all residents don’t have one. Low pay, a mountain of paperwork and lack of timely access to MRIs and specialists make the work so frustrating to Chris and his colleagues that many are giving up.

Futurist Zayna Khayat and Geriatrician Samir Sinha offer home care solutions which are less expensive and more effective than our current system.

For our new season’s launch, we’re taking an in-depth look at home care. It’s a crucial part of a health-care system that’s on the brink of collapsing. Nearly one million Canadians rely on home care and another 500,000 will need it within the decade. But the care people are receiving is far less than what they need. We go into the homes of three families to bring you their stories.

Dr. Brian Goldman rides along with Constable Scott Woods of the Hamilton Police Service and Sarah Burtenshaw, a mental health worker at St. Joseph’s Healthcare. They are a Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team in Hamilton that responds to 9-1-1 mental calls related to mental health crises. Originally broadcast December, 2021

Maryam Mahdavi musters the courage to make a social breakthrough at university thanks to coaching from Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, an Ottawa ICU physician.

A surprisingly intimate conversation with Dr. Alika Lafontaine. This weekend, the Metis anesthesiologist from Saskatchewan becomes the first Indigenous physician to lead the Canadian Medical Association.

A feature interview with Dr. Kathryn Mannix. In her new book, "Listen: How to find the words for tender conversations," Mannix shares lessons on how to connect with loved ones and friends on deeply personal subjects.

Likening the 100-year-old hospital gown to a prisoner's orange jumpsuit, a prominent British doctor says the "alien, open-at-the-back garment" is in desperate need of a redesign.

Listen in on the one-on-one coaching sessions between Kealey Pringle and AnnMarie Churchill, a social worker in St. John’s. She's helping Kealey take baby steps towards overcoming her COVID fears and rekindling her in-person social life.

Halifax cardiologist Dr. Gabrielle Horne spent 14 years fighting to restore her reputation after she was bullied and bad-mouthed by supervisors when she was an up-and-coming researcher. She was awarded what was the largest settlement in Canada for loss of reputation. While her story is extraordinary, it's not isolated. This episode explores why doctors bully and what it will take to change the culture that allows it to happen, with insights from Dr. Horne and lawyer Valerie Wise, who represents both doctors and their employers in disputes.

As masking in public places shifts from a requirement to a recommendation, some Canadians are getting called out for continuing to wear masks. Experts say mask harassment could be part of a trend of increased aggression during the pandemic. And it may discourage people from wearing masks as the infectious BA.5 subvariant sweeps across Canada.

Iatrophobia is a fear of doctors. Barbara Old had panic attacks just thinking about doctors, so she avoided them like the plague. Until one day she discovered a lump in her breast.

The Kilala Lelum health cooperative in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside merges Western medicine with cultural practices to help hard-to-reach patients. It also uses an innovative mobile clinic that offers everything from wound care to prescriptions for treating opioid drug addiction.

Emergency room waits across Canada are reaching unprecedented levels, for both kids and adults. There are many factors: nursing shortages, lack of hospital beds and staff unable to work because of COVID. We talk about the stresses, and the solutions. They include more cooperation across hospital departments and building capacity to handle more emergencies.

BONUS PODCAST: Through the coaching of psychologist Hillary McBride, Maria Glavine taps into a powerful emotion to give her the strength to take her daughter on a fun adventure.

After hearing from dozens of women about their experience with IUD pain in Part 1, we find out how some gynecologists like Dr. Fiona Mattatall are making the experience of getting an IUD more comfortable, though there’s no standardized pain control methods proven to work for everyone.

BONUS PODCAST: Maria Glavine's 9-month-old daughter Clare is too young to be vaccinated and has one functioning kidney. Hillary McBride, a clinical psychologist and host of Other People's Problems, is coaching Maria through her first steps back into the world.

IUDs are an effective and popular form of birth control in Canada. But many women experience intense pain from the insertion that they weren’t warned about. In this episode, women across the country share stories of unexpected pain, complications and emotional distress. In Part 2, what some gynecologists are doing to make the experience of getting IUDs more comfortable.

BONUS PODCAST: Maryam Mahdavi finds the courage to make one huge breakthrough thanks to coaching from Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng.

On his 45th wedding anniversary, Ramesh Karnick was at home with his wife, Sandhya, when he appeared to lose consciousness. Ramesh was in a coma for five weeks before he passed away. His daughter, Sonali has spent years trying to answer the question: how did her father die?

BONUS PODCAST: For university student Maryam Mahdavi, COVID crushed her social life and began a sedentary lifestyle with too many trips to the fridge driven by loneliness and boredom. Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, an Ottawa ICU physician and healthy living advocate helps her take the first steps to getting back on track.

Canada's assisted dying law now includes deaths that are not reasonably foreseeable for people with serious and incurable illnesses or disabilities who aren't dying in the near future. Dr. Stefanie Green, president of the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers and Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician and health justice activist, share how the law opens the door to Canadians seeking MAiD as a means of escape from intolerable lives.

BONUS PODCAST: Kealey Pringle and AnnMarie Churchill conclude their coaching sessions with a sweet-tasting win over Kealey's pandemic anxiety.

It's a story of gratitude. One year ago, hospital housekeeper Maria Valverde was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Thanks to treatment, her cancer has stabilized. She says that's given her a second chance for life.

BONUS PODCAST: Listen to the one-on-one coaching sessions between Kealey Pringle and AnnMarie Churchill, a social worker in St. John’s. She's helping Kealey take baby steps towards overcoming her COVID fears and rekindling her in-person social life.

Some family doctors struggling with huge patient loads, paperwork and the pandemic are cutting back or cutting out of medicine altogether. Montreal family doctor Marc Cotran has handed in his medical licence at the age of 45. Dr. Rashmi Bhalla in London has reduced her clinical hours to better cope.

Childhood neglect and abuse can lead to serious health problems in adults. Toronto psychiatrists Dr. Bob Maunder and Dr. Jon Hunter are calling for radical change to deal with this national epidemic in their new book, "Damaged: Childhood Trauma, Adult Illness, and the Need for a Health Care Revolution."

In December 2019, Jennifer Fotheringham was stuck in traffic on the Queensway in Ottawa. She heard a White Coat Black Art episode about women in their forties dying of breast cancer, in part because they don’t get access to screening mammograms. She credits that episode of White Coat Black Art with saving her life.

One in five women who get breast cancer are in their 40s. Canada's current guidelines say women in that age group who are at low risk of breast cancer don't need regular mammograms or breast self-exams. But Lucy van Oldenbarneveld disagrees. She and her sister got breast cancer in their 40s. Lucy survived, but her sister did not.

A Canadian-American emergency physician with Doctors without Borders has just led its first Medical Train across Ukraine. Dr. Dan Schnorr and his team evacuated nine trauma patients and their families from Zaporizhzhia, near the frontlines of the war in the southeast, to Lviv in the west. A risky thousand-kilometre journey to bring injured civilians to safety.

The Recovery Sessions Part 3 - Maria Glavine's 9-month-old daughter Clare has just one functioning kidney, and may be immuno-compromised. But Clare needs to get out into the world -- and so does Maria. Under the coaching of psychologist Hillary McBride who is also a new mom, Maria taps into a strong emotion to help her move forward: anger.

Jeremie Saunders has cystic fibrosis but is relieved provinces are lifting Covid restrictions because it means he can get back to a higher quality of life. But the host of Sickboy podcast hopes people who had “road rage” at public health measures become kinder towards others, especially if they’re immunocompromised.

Second edition of The Recovery Sessions, a series of coaching sessions for people who are facing pandemic-related challenges. For Maryam Mahdavi, a first-year psychology and music student at McGill, COVID crushed her social life and began a sedentary lifestyle with too many trips to the fridge driven by loneliness and boredom. She’s paired with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, an Ottawa ICU physician and healthy living advocate. Kwadwo challenged Maryam to walk to and from campus. Just doing that made her feel better about herself. It also helped change her sleep and eating habits. But her ultimate goal was to get past her loneliness brought on by pandemic isolation and start meeting fellow students on campus.

Cheryl Hiebert chose to have a medically-assisted death without telling anyone in her family. Her siblings and father say they desperately wish they’d had a chance to say goodbye, and think they should have been informed. But Ontario’s chief coroner says the patient’s right to privacy comes first.

Part One of The Recovery Sessions: Social worker AnnMarie Churchill helps Kealey Pringle overcome her pandemic anxiety so she can reconnect with her friends, family and community.

Falls put more seniors in hospital than any other kind of injury. They can also be lethal. Dr. Brian Goldman visits the Falls Lab in Toronto Rehab Institute. It studies what makes people fall and teaches seniors how to regain strength, mobility and confidence.

All he did was say hello, and he got punched in the face. Toronto ER doctor Qassim Tejpar was assaulted by a patient lying on a stretcher in the hospital waiting room. The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians says violence in the ER is a grave problem. While healthcare workers have a four-fold higher rate of workplace violence, half of those attacks occur in the ER.

The Kilala Lelum health cooperative in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside merges Western medicine with cultural practices to help hard-to-reach patients. It also uses an innovative mobile clinic that offers everything from wound care to prescriptions for treating opioid drug addiction.

The crisis at Winnipeg ERs. Worsened by COVID, it’s been years in the making. Hospitals are packed with Omicron patients and there are fewer ERs to serve the community. It's driven nurses and health-care workers to the breaking point.

How the nursing shortage is affecting ​one busy Ontario hospital’s internal medicine ward. That’s where adults are admitted for things like pneumonia, kidney failure, cancer and COVID-19. A veteran nurse/unit coordinator and a young nurse say the situation is so dire that they wouldn’t want loved ones to be admitted where they work.

Two hospital CEOs in Ontario are trying to pilot their respective ships through the Eye of the Omicron Storm. Cyndi Davis is President and CEO of Lakeridge Health located east of Toronto. Alex Munter is the President and CEO of CHEO, a pediatric hospital in Ottawa.

Finding a family doctor is a huge challenge for many Canadians. In British Columbia, a growing number of people are turning to nurse practitioners, who have a scope of practice between a family doctor and a registered nurse.

A feature interview with Dr. Kathryn Mannix. In her new book – Listen: How to find the words for tender conversations, Mannix shares lessons on how to connect with loved ones and friends on deeply personal subjects.

Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with psychiatrist and neuroscientist Judson Brewer about his new book “Unwinding Anxiety: New science shows you how to break the cycles of worry and fear to heal your mind”. It’s just what the doctor ordered to start out the new year.

Because of the pandemic, pharmacists are going way beyond counting pills and filling prescriptions. They administer COVID vaccines, and are poised to expand their scope of practice even more post-pandemic.

Dr. Brian Goldman rides along with Constable Scott Woods of the Hamilton Police Service and Sarah Burtenshaw, a mental health worker at St. Joseph’s Healthcare. They are a Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team in Hamilton that responds to 9-1-1 mental calls related to mental health crises.

More people are showing up in hospitals with advanced, incurable cancers and it’s taking a toll on the doctors who care for them. Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with Dr. Gerald Batist, a medical oncologist and director of the Cancer Centre at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital and Dr. Irene Ying at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

How climate-induced storms are affecting healthcare access in rural parts of Canada .

Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto tackles vaccine hesitancy among its healthcare workers by friendly peer persuasion. Dr. Adina Weinerman and nurse Diana Beckford explain how it works.

For the most part, Canadians admire doctors. But Ottawa family doctor Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth got a death threat because of her public support for COVID vaccines. And she’s not alone.

Dr. Sheila Singh, a pediatric neurosurgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital talks about the enormous collateral damage of the pandemic. She's now seeing tumours as big as oranges and grapefruits, instead of ping pong balls. Dr. Singh blames it on telling people not to come to hospital, and relying too much on virtual health care -- all lessons for the future.

Climate change is fuelling more and more weather-related disasters, and they have medical consequences. In an encore presentation, Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with officials from health institutions that have endured hurricanes, wildfires and tsunamis to find out how they weathered the crisis, and what lessons can be learned.

Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with Alberta ER physician Joe Vipond and his 15-year-old daughter, Sadie. He’s president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and she’s one of fifteen young people who are part of a lawsuit against the federal government over climate change. Together, they’re raising their voices about climate change’s effect on our physical and mental health. And now, the family duo is taking their message to COP26.

Ideas with Nahlah Ayed is a deep-dive into contemporary thought and intellectual history. No topic is off-limits. In this episode, Dr. Anthony Fauci tells Ideas host Nahlah Ayed that he finds it "mind-boggling" that partisanship and skepticism of science continue to fuel the pandemic. More episodes of Ideas are available at smarturl.it/cbcideas

Iatrophobia is a fear of doctors. Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with Barbara Old, a B.C. woman who had panic attacks just thinking about doctors, so she avoided them like the plague. Until one day she discovered a lump in her breast.

Falls put more seniors in hospital than any other kind of injury. They can also be lethal.

Dr. Brian Goldman explores intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, or ISTDP, a kind of talk therapy that is gaining a reputation for helping long-suffering patients with unexplained symptoms. Dr. Allan Abbass, a psychiatrist at QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax says he has been getting good results helping people get back to work.

For patients who survive the COVID ward like Akiva Balter, there’s still a hard road of recovery ahead. But he’s been able to do it from his own home thanks to his wife Carmela and a unique new program run out of Women’s College Hospital.

What if there were a pill that could add decades to your life? Would you take it? For thousands of years, people have searched for elixirs that could delay death and extend human life. Could new advances in medicine finally make this a reality? From madcap medicine to cutting-edge science, the quest to unlock the fountain of youth is teeming with dreamers, skeptics and charlatans alike. More episodes are available at: hyperurl.co/unlocking

Dispatches by two healthcare professionals from the front lines of Alberta’s 4th wave of COVID19: Dr. Raiyan Chowdhury and nurse Michael Gaerlan.

Rabia Khedr is the national director of Disability Without Poverty and has a big personal stake in the upcoming federal election. Rabia and her sister are visually impaired. One brother with an intellectual disability lives in long-term care. Her other brother died of complications following surgery during the pandemic. With more than six million people living with disabilities in this country, Rabia is working to get the next government to listen to their needs, and says implementing the National Disability Benefit is a first step, no matter which party takes the reins.

Dr. Brian Goldman visits a rural hospital in Clinton, Ontario that’s been dealing with a nurse shortage for a decade: a shortfall so acute it forced the hospital to close the ER on the Sunday of a busy holiday weekend.

Long COVID in kids: researchers aren’t certain what causes it and aren’t certain about the numbers. They’re not even sure how to define it. Dr. Brian Goldman meets 11-year-old Alyssa Smyth who has long COVID and talks to Dr. Anu Wadhwa, an infectious disease specialist at SickKids Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Brian Goldman travels to Renfrew County north of Ottawa to ride along with community paramedic, Matt Rousselle who provides end-of-life care to patients living in rural and isolated homes.

To predict the future, some people look into crystal balls. And some peer into the past. Dr. Nicholas Christakis is a physician and medical sociologist who is a student of pandemics. His latest book is Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. This week on White Coat Black Art, he talks to Dr. Brian Goldman about how we get past COVID-19 by looking at how we emerged from previous pandemics. He says in the past, outbreaks have led to austerity and a turn to religion, but when we finally do emerge from COVID-19, he says our behaviour will mirror the "roaring 20s" that followed the 1918 pandemic. But he also predicts new challenges, which include coping with a large cohort of people who are newly disabled because of having had COVID-19, and a shift in the workforce that could have long-term impacts on women in particular. Buckle up. We're going back to the post-covid future, this week on White Coat, Black Art.

Late last month, BC's heat dome brought record temperatures and caused more deaths in seniors and other vulnerable people than the BC Coroner has (so far) been able to tally. Dr. Brian Goldman talks to Barbara Reed, who took care of a sick and frail family member in the sweltering heat, waiting hours for an ambulance to show up. Jennifer Baumbusch, associate professor at UBC’s School of Nursing and caregiver to family members, talks about the mistakes that were made protecting the most vulnerable members of society, and how unprepared we are for the realities of climate change.

From 1953 to 1966, Christopher Guest lived at the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia, an institution for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. For the most part, places like Huronia may be gone, but their legacy remains: not just in the memories of the patients who lived there, but in the ways health-care continues to treat adults with developmental disabilities.

Dr. Brian Goldman celebrates dietary aide Iain White as an unsung hero of the pandemic. During the lockdowns, elderly LTC residents faced loneliness and isolation. Iain stepped up to fill the gap by taking extra time to talk to residents and feed them their meals.