They’re the gold standard of care for severe mental illness. So why doesn’t Ontario fund more of them?

Dr. Samuel Law spoke with TVO for a story about Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams, which are considered the gold standard for mental health care. Law talked about how the pandemic impacted the ACT teams he works on, how allied professionals and clients’ families and friends helped to close care gaps during the pandemic, and how a study from St. Michael’s showed that despite efforts, people with mental health issues had significant struggles during lockdowns.

Ontario’s family doctor deserts are so vast, patients won’t leave physicians even after they move hours away

MAP scientist Dr. Archna Gupta found that patients in Ontario were typically better off being in close proximity to their family doctors. The further away they lived, the less likely they were to be screened for cancer and the more likely they were to visit the emergency department for non-urgent health concerns. Dr. Gupta recently spoke with The Globe and Mail about these findings.

From lab innovation to street safety: scientists develop rapid drug testing device to combat overdose crisis

Dr. Dan Werb‘s collabortive work with Dr. Dan Beriault and Dr. Drew Hall on a new drug checking device, DoseCheck, was recently featured in U of T news. The device will be low cost to produce and can give results in just 45 seconds. It won’t have the range of a mass spectrometer, which is the gold standard, but it will detect the most common substances found. It will help fill in the gaps in current harm reduction methods by making testing more accessible.