The Certificate of Added Competence credentialling program in family medicine: a descriptive survey of the family physician perspective of enhanced skill practices in Canada.

Introduction: The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) offers the Certificate of Added Competence (CAC) program to designate a family physician with enhanced skills. In 2015, the College expanded its program to introduce enhanced certification in four new domains: Palliative Care, Care of the Elderly, Sports and Exercise Medicine, and Family Practice Anesthesia. In this study, we elicited perceptions from Canadian family physicians with and without the CAC on practice impacts associated with the program. Methods: Active family physicians in Canada with and without CACs were surveyed between November 2019 to January 2020. Descriptive statistics were generated to describe the perceptions of family physicians regarding the CAC program and its impacts on practice. Results: Respondents agreed with several benefits of the program including enhancing the capacity to deliver comprehensive care, alleviating the burden of patient travel by increasing the availability of care in rural and remote communities, and providing opportunities to engage in various collaborative care models and new leadership roles. All respondents perceived CAC holders to pursue the certificate to meet both professional interests and community needs. Conclusions: There is a need for strong and continued investment in systemic practice improvements that incentivize the delivery of comprehensive family medicine practice.

Introduction: Le certificat de compétence additionnelle (CCA) accordé par le Collège des médecins de famille du Canada (CMFC) vise à reconnaître un haut niveau de compétences chez un médecin de famille. En 2015, le Collège a élargi le titre de compétences additionnelles à quatre nouveaux domaines : soins palliatifs, soins aux personnes âgées, médecine du sport et de l'exercice, et anesthésie en médecine familiale. Dans cette étude, nous avons recueilli les perceptions de médecins de famille titulaires et non titulaires d'un CCA sur l'influence de pratiques associées au programme de certification. Méthodes: Des médecins de famille actifs au Canada, titulaires et non titulaires du CCA, ont été interrogés entre novembre 2019 et janvier 2020. Des statistiques descriptives ont été générées pour décrire leurs perceptions concernant le Certificat et ses impacts sur la pratique. Résultats: Les répondants s'entendaient pour reconnaître au CCA plusieurs avantages, notamment le fait d'améliorer la capacité des médecins à fournir des soins complets, de leur offrir la possibilité de s'engager dans divers modèles de soins collaboratifs et de nouveaux rôles de leadership, et d'alléger le fardeau des déplacements des patients en augmentant la disponibilité des soins dans les populations rurales et éloignées. Tous les répondants estiment que les médecins recherchent l'obtention de ce titre de compétence pour répondre à la fois à leurs intérêts professionnels et aux besoins de la collectivité. Conclusions: Il faut investir de manière importante et continue dans des améliorations systémiques qui favoriseront une pratique holistique de la médecine familiale.

Family Physicians with Certificates of Added Competence in Palliative Care Contribute to Comprehensive Care in Their Communities: A Qualitative Descriptive Study.

Background: Since 2015, the College of Family Physicians of Canada has certified enhanced skills in palliative care (PC) with a certificate of added competence. Aim: This study aimed to describe the ways family physicians with enhanced skills in PC contribute within their communities, the factors that influence ways of practicing, and the perceived impacts. Design: Secondary analysis of data from a multiple case study on the role and impacts of family physicians with enhanced skills (i.e., PC physicians) was undertaken. Setting/Participants: Interviews were conducted in 2018 to 2019 with PC and generalist family physicians and residents associated with six family medicine practice cases across Canada. An unconstrained qualitative content analysis was performed. Results: Twenty-one participants (nine PC physicians, five generalist family physicians, two residents, and five physicians with enhanced skills in other domains) contributed data. PC physicians worked by enhancing their own family practice or as focused PC physicians. Roles included collaborating with other physicians through consultations, comanaging patients (shared care), or assuming care of the patient as the main provider (takeover). PC physicians increased capacity among their colleagues, with some patient care and education activities not being remunerated. Funding models and other structures were perceived as incentivizing the takeover model. Conclusion: Family physicians with enhanced skills in PC contribute to comprehensive care through the end of life. Remuneration should support system capacity and relationships that enable family physicians to provide primary PC especially outside the takeover model.

Impacts of the Certificates of Added Competence credentialling program: a qualitative case study of enhanced-skill family medicine practice across Canada.

BACKGROUND: In 2015, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) expanded its Certificates of Added Competence (CAC) program to include enhanced-skill certification in Care of Elderly, Family Practice Anesthesia, Palliative Care, and Sports and Exercise Medicine. We aimed to describe the impact of these 4 CACs on the provision of comprehensive care in Canada, while also identifying the factors of influence that foster these impacts. METHODS: Between September 2018 and June 2019, we conducted qualitative case studies of 6 family medicine practices across Canada, sampled to represent geographic, population and practice arrangement diversity. We developed a framework of relevant factors and their relations to CAC-mediated comprehensive care delivery. We took an exploratory approach to the first 4 case studies, guided by theoretical propositions based on a literature review, and the CFPC's 4 principles of family medicine and goals for practice. The emerging theory was confirmed and adapted through the final 2 explanatory case studies. Data were obtained through semistructured qualitative interviews with enhanced-skill and generalist physicians, specialists, trainees and administrators associated with these cases. We performed a descriptive content analysis, within and across cases. RESULTS: Interviews with 48 participants showed considerable variation in the way CACs are operationalized related to the specific domain of care, the community, relationships among practitioners, motivations of the practitioner and needs of the patient population. The presence of CAC holders in communities expands the scope of available services, reduces the need for patients to travel and encourages continuity of care; however, comprehensive care may be negatively affected when CAC holders develop enhanced-skill practices according to clinical interests rather than community needs. Factors associated with collaborative care models, practice requirements, remuneration structure, community culture and individual aspirations interact to reinforce or undermine the effectiveness of enhanced-skill practices. INTERPRETATION: Holders of CACs have a positive impact when they work in collaborative models that align with the needs of communities and that support local generalist family physicians. Health care policies should incentivize CAC activities that contribute to planned care delivery at the practice and community levels.

Design and Approach of the Healthy Weight Clinic Pediatric Weight Management Intervention Package and Implementation: Massachusetts-CORD 3.0.

Background: Although proven effective interventions for childhood obesity exist, there remains a substantial gap in the adoption of recommended practices by clinicians. Objective: The aims are to: (1) package implementation and training supports to facilitate the adoption of the evidence-based Healthy Weight Clinic Pediatric Weight Management Intervention (PWMI) (based on three previous effectiveness trials); (2) pilot and evaluate the packaged Healthy Weight Clinic PWMI; and (3) develop a sustainability and dissemination plan. Design/Methods: We used the Consolidated Framework of Implementation Research constructs to create an Implementation Research Logic Model that defined the facilitators and barriers of the Healthy Weight Clinic PWMI. We linked these constructs to implementation strategies and mechanisms. Packaging and design will be informed by the core essential components and functions of the PWMI along with stakeholder engagement. Once the package is complete, we will pilot the PWMI by using a Type III effectiveness-implementation hybrid design. Implementation outcomes will be evaluated by using the RE-AIM framework. Results: We will create an integrated, multisystems level package for national dissemination. The package will include training and a suite of resources for primary care physicians and healthy weight clinic staff, including: patient and caregiver facing videos, patient and caregiver handouts, group curriculum guide, online provider trainings, and access to a virtual learning collaborative. Conclusion: The results will highlight the extent to which the package of the Healthy Weight Clinic PWMI facilitates the adoption of effective strategies for treating childhood obesity. Lessons learned will inform modifications to the Healthy Weight Clinic PWMI and strategies for future scaling.

'Yarning up with Koori kids' - hearing the voices of Australian urban Indigenous children about their health and well-being.

OBJECTIVE: Australian Indigenous children experience some of the most substantial health inequalities globally. In this context, research regarding their health and well-being has overemphasised physical illnesses with limited exploration of a diverse range of dimensions and determinants, particularly those based on Indigenous holistic understandings of health and well-being. This deficit-based approach has thus missed many strengths and assets of Indigenous children. This research aimed to gain insight into the perspectives of Indigenous children about their health and well-being in an urban setting in Australia. It joins a limited international literature examining views and experiences of non-majority children. DESIGN: Participatory and qualitative child-friendly research methods were utilised. The project was developed in partnership with Indigenous community organisations and members. Photo-elicitation activities and focus groups were conducted with 31 Indigenous children aged 8-12 years. Qualitative data were analysed thematically, combining focus group and interview data. RESULTS: It was evident an urban Indigenous child perspective of health and well-being includes rich understandings of the interconnectedness of physical, social-emotional and cultural dimensions of holism, as well as the integral importance of family and community relationships. The study also found that specific worries regarding loss of loved ones and racism were highly salient in Indigenous children's lives. CONCLUSION: The overwhelming conclusion to be drawn from this research is that Indigenous children in urban areas need ongoing recognition of both their agency and resilience in the face of adversity, within a wider context of historical and contemporary racialisation and racism.

Replace, reuse, recycle: improving the sustainable use of phosphorus by plants.

The 'phosphorus problem' has recently received strong interest with two distinct strands of importance. The first is that too much phosphorus (P) is entering into waste water, creating a significant economic and ecological problem. Secondly, while agricultural demand for phosphate fertilizer is increasing to maintain crop yields, rock phosphate reserves are rapidly declining. Unravelling the mechanisms by which plants sense, respond to, and acquire phosphate can address both problems, allowing the development of crop plants that are more efficient at acquiring and using limited amounts of phosphate while at the same time improving the potential of plants and other photosynthetic organisms for nutrient recapture and recycling from waste water. In this review, we attempt to synthesize these important but often disparate parts of the debate in a holistic fashion, since solutions to such a complex problem require integrated and multidisciplinary approaches that address both P supply and demand. Rapid progress has been made recently in our understanding of local and systemic signalling mechanisms for phosphate, and of expression and regulation of membrane proteins that take phosphate up from the environment and transport it within the plant. We discuss the current state of understanding of such mechanisms involved in sensing and responding to phosphate stress. We also discuss approaches to improve the P-use efficiency of crop plants and future direction for sustainable use of P, including use of photosynthetic organisms for recapture of P from waste waters.

An inhibitor of oil body mobilization in Arabidopsis.

Fatty acid ß-oxidation is an essential process in many aspects of plant development, and storage oil in the form of triacylglycerol (TAG) is an important food source for humans and animals, for biofuel and for industrial feedstocks. In this study we characterize the effects of a small molecule, diphenyl methylphosphonate, on oil mobilization in Arabidopsis thaliana. Confocal laser scanning microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and quantitative lipid profiling were used to examine the effects of diphenyl methylphosphonate treatment on seedlings. Diphenyl methylphosphonate causes peroxisome clustering around oil bodies but does not affect morphology of other cellular organelles. We show that this molecule blocks the breakdown of pre-existing oil bodies resulting in retention of TAG and accumulation of acyl CoAs. The biochemical and phenotypic effects are consistent with a block in the early part of the ß-oxidation pathway. Diphenyl methylphosphonate appears to be a fairly specific inhibitor of TAG mobilization in plants and whilst further work is required to identify the molecular target of the compound it should prove a useful tool to interrogate and manipulate these pathways in a controlled and reproducible manner.