In 2019, a British Columbia (BC) court decided against a Charter challenge, launched by Cambie Surgical Services (a private clinic). Cambie claimed that various laws in BC suppressing a two-tier system are contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and should be overturned. The trial judge carefully weighed the evidence for and against a two-tier system as a "safety valve" for long wait times in public Medicare, finding overall that two-tier will do more harm than good in the BC context. It is a small victory and a reprieve for public Medicare, which is increasingly under attack from various forms of privatization. But the courts cannot save healthcare on their own nor should they be expected to. The commitment and participation of all levels of government to improving waiting times is crucial. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of a clinic embedded Medication Assistance Program (MAP) specialist on the prescription benefit prior authorization (PA) process and provider satisfaction in an adult pulmonary clinic. In this mixed methods study, a retrospective cohort analysis was done to determine the turnaround time for the PA process from initial referral to approval or final denial in an adult pulmonary clinic. Additionally, a pre- and post-implementation survey to providers was conducted to assess provider satisfaction and perceptions around the prescription benefit PA process. The first study aim assessed PA efficiency by summarizing PA approval rate and PA turnaround time using descriptive statistics. Any prescriptions written by a clinic provider requiring a PA during the timeframe of June 2018 through August 2018 were included. The second study aim assessed change in provider satisfaction, analyzed via the Mann-Whitney U test. The MAP specialist completed 110 PAs over 3 months for 110 unique patients. Median turnaround time was 3 hours, with 76% of PAs approved in less than 24 hours. Initial approval rate was 82.7%, and overall approval rate following the appeals process was 87.3%. A significant difference between the pre- and post-survey responses were identified in 2 of the 17 questions. Implementation of a clinic embedded MAP specialist to complete PAs demonstrated an efficient process while also improving provider satisfaction. Implementation of a clinic embedded MAP specialist to complete PAs demonstrated an efficient process while also improving provider satisfaction. The principal aim of this pilot study was to investigate the concordance between the different stages of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), as determined by the simplified classification of the Age Related Eye Disease Study Group (AREDS), and new evaluation criteria using a microperimetry system. A complete eye examination and a microperimetry MAIATM (Macular Integrity Assessment, CenterVue, Padova, Italy) examination was performed on 59 eyes with early, intermediate or advanced AMD. We analysed 19 evaluation criteria for every clinical group category. There were 20 female and 12 male participants included with a median age of 74 years (min 54, max 87). Thirteen eyes (22%) were classified as category 1, 11 eyes (18.6%) as category 2, 17 eyes (28.8%) as category 3 and 18 eyes (30.6%) as category 4 AMD.All evaluated microperimetry criteria related to retinal sensitivity were found to have a statistically significant difference among the stages (  < 0.05). Fixation stability was unstable in 55.6% of the eyes classified as stage 4 (  = 0.001). The analysis of the distance between the two PRLs - PRL_initial and PRL_final was larger for the stage 4 (  = 0.0258). The mean sensitivity in stages 2 and 3 correlated with the presence or not of reticular pseudodrusen (  = 0.0137). The mean sensitivity and the categorized sensitivity (set to 25, 15 and 5 dB), the five higher and lower stimuli sensitivity appeared to be the most sensitive criteria to differentiate the four AMD categories. Microperimetry provides a new reproducible method of anatomical-functional macular analysis. The mean sensitivity and the categorized sensitivity (set to 25, 15 and 5 dB), the five higher and lower stimuli sensitivity appeared to be the most sensitive criteria to differentiate the four AMD categories. Microperimetry provides a new reproducible method of anatomical-functional macular analysis.Observational studies, from multiple countries, repeatedly demonstrate an association between obesity and severe COVID-19, which is defined as need for hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) or death. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/FK-506-(Tacrolimus).html Meta-analysis of studies from China, USA, and France show odds ratio (OR) of 2.31 (95% CI 1.3-4.1) for obesity and severe COVID-19. Other studies show OR of 12.1 (95% CI 3.25-45.1) for mortality and OR of 7.36 (95% CI 1.63-33.14) for need for IMV for patients with body mass index (BMI) ≥ 35 kg/m2. Obesity is the only modifiable risk factor that is not routinely treated but treatment can lead to improvement in visceral adiposity, insulin sensitivity, and mortality risk. Increasing the awareness of the association between obesity and COVID-19 risk in the general population and medical community may serve as the impetus to make obesity identification and management a higher priority. Retrospective propensity score matching (PSM) study. To investigate the perioperative outcomes comparing adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) and adult idiopathic scoliosis (AdIS) patients following posterior spinal fusion (PSF). 425 female AIS and AdIS patients who were operated (between January 2015 to March 2020) using a dual attending surgeon strategy were stratified into G1 (AIS aged 10-16 years old) and G2 (AdIS > 20 years old). PSM analysis with one-to-one, nearest neighbor matching technique with match tolerance of 0.001 was used to matched 357 AIS patients to 68 AdIS patients. Operation duration, intraoperative blood loss (IBL), blood loss percentage, hemoglobin drift, blood salvaged, postoperative wound length, allogenic blood transfusion requirement, postoperative hospital stay, postoperative Cobb, correction rate and postoperative complications were documented and reported. Following PSM, G1 and G2 each had 50 patients with comparable and balanced covariates. As anticipated, G2 patients were heavier, taller and had higher body mass index compared to G1 patients ( < 0.