Chair's Message
These days one doesn’t have to look too far in medical journals, magazines and periodicals, social media, or the internet before finding a reference to Choosing Wisely.The Choosing Wisely campaign began in the United States of America and now has spread to many countries around the world, championed by Choosing Wisely Canada.
The Choosing Wisely campaign is designed to bring attention to unnecessary tests and treatments in medicine, and strives to educate physicians, other health care personnel and the public.
Each specialty, including Family Medicine, has developed lists of “things that clinicians and patients should question” based on the lack of evidence supporting their use. You will be familiar with most of them because they are commonly used in clinical practice.
Medical conferences often will highlight workshops based on the Choosing Wisely recommendations.
Toolkits have been developed to help clinicians move some of these recommendations into practice. Some of the toolkits are focused on hospital issues, but some can help you in everyday office practice, such as the toolkit to help you with the deprescribing of long term PPIs. This toolkit contains suggestions and algorhythms to help you discuss this with your patients. The Toronto Western Family Health Team used this approach and were successful in reducing the use of long-term PPIs by about 26 per cent.
I encourage you to look at the Choosing Wisely website, and check the Family Medicine and other lists for recommendations that you could try in your own practice. What a great way to benefit the system and improve the health of your patients.
As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions at stephen.wetmore@schulich.uwo.ca.
