Videos

What’s ‘public health’?

You have heard the term ‘public health’, but do you actually know what it means? This clip will let you know what this entails, what kind of research is conducted and what can be done to improve the health of a country’s people.

The great inversion of medicine

Eric Topol | TEDxSanFrancisco

You are about to meet Eric Topol, one of the most knowledgeable people working in health and he has been influential in how physicians ought to deal with patients. His books are amazing and should be read by every physician, medical resident and health care worker. If nothing else, he will convince you that every person being treated needs to be considered using an individualized approach especially as events at one time in life can follow the individual into old age. He is remarkably smart, and in my mind, everything he says is gold.

Deep medicine

Eric Topol

Medicine is changing in multiple ways, and Eric Topol is leading the pack in this regard. High risk of chronic diseases can be determined, in part, by knowing about genetics and the functioning of various organs of the body, which can be tracked on a moment to moment through new technologies. More than this sensors soon will soon be possible that could be used for individualized diets and hence preventing and modifying chronic illnesses.

Toward a new understanding of mental illness

Thomas Insel

Thomas Insel, as previous head of the NIMH, knows well the difficulties of curing diseases, particularly mental illnesses. In this talk he tells us about mental health problems, which have enormous consequences on productive years lost. These illnesses start early in life and as such represent a chronic illness. In fact, many brain changes begin to appear well before behavioural disturbances are manifested. Perhaps it will eventually be possible to adopt intervention strategies to prevent illnesses.

How does anesthesia work?

Steven Zheng

Surgery is scary for most of us. Thank goodness anaesthetics have been developed so that the patient is unaware of what is happening to them. This video tells you a bit about how anaesthetics work and has lots of additional useful information. As good and important as anaesthetics and much safer than they had been years ago, among some elderly people they can have negative effects on cognitive functioning, often persisting for extended period.

Medical errors are killing us

Theresa Sabo | TEDxStanleyPark

Did you know that physicians are not perfect? In fact, iatrogenic illness that comprise mishaps related to medical treatments is the third leading cause of death in Canada (and probably in other developed countries). Is this understandable or is it something that needs more attention?

Culture matters – In health, illness, life and death

Haris Agic | TEDxNorrkopingED

You might consider that traumatic experiences create psychological disturbances and physical illnesses. To an extent, these outcomes can be managed through group behaviours. Haris Agic shows that culture can have therapeutic actions to abate the impacts of trauma.

What happens when we age?

DNA and cell division have a lot to do with the ageing process. This includes normal ageing, which leads to the emergence of ill health. Particular DNA disturbances are associated with rapid ageing, and ageing that leads to certain types of illnesses. This might give scientists clues as to what happens during the course of ageing.

Vampire therapy

Ageing is, in a sense, a chronic disease – or at least favours the development of chronic diseases. Researchers have long sought a way of thwarting the ageing process not only in an effort to increase longevity, but to prevent chronic illness. So, now we have the hope that getting young blood might reverse ageing. Does that sound creepy? There is information, although exclusively from animal studies, suggesting this might be a fountain of youth. Other studies, however, suggested that while administering blood from an older animal to young animals can have ageing effects, giving young blood to an older animal might not have beneficial effects. Whether it happens in humans is not certain.