14 Mar 2022 Wade Thompson, pharmacist, epidemiologist, lecturer and one of Canada’s foremost experts on deprescribing
What do you do as a clinician when you routinely encounter people taking 15 to 20 medications at a time, many of them unnecessary and potentially harmful?
That’s the kind of dilemma our newest member of the TI has made his mission to help solve.
Dr. Wade Thompson comes to the Therapeutics Initiative after more than a decade of clinical and research expertise, developing, studying and promoting ways to reduce unnecessary or harmful medication, especially in older persons.
As an astoundingly productive clinician and researcher, working in Ottawa, Denmark and Toronto, Wade has been at the forefront of bringing the term “deprescribing” into the medical lexicon and his focus on rigorous methods to improve rational drug use is poised to have a major impact on the care of Canada’s oldest people. You can check out some of the guidelines and decision-support tools (deprescribing algorithms) he helped to develop at https://deprescribing.org/
Wade’s work merges nicely with a central thrust of the TI’s educational work over the last few years, focused on reducing the harm of routinely-prescribed drugs and deprescribing. Wade will be here to help contribute to our webinars, Therapeutics Letters and personalized prescribing Portraits on deprescribing. Wade’s enthusiastic and youthful zeal makes him an excellent fit for our team.
You can read more about his bio on our Members Page.
Welcome aboard Wade!
Christine Martin
Posted at 13:40h, 24 MarchSo glad to see this.
I think our society has become too dependent on a medication for everything without being properly informed as consumers as to the risks and potential harms of too much medication, and continue to take it even though they are not seeing any real benefit, and some even believing they may die if they stop, only because they are not properly informed.
I believe knowledge is powerful when it comes to our health in particular.
So I very much appreciate the work that the TI does in this regard.
It’s important for us all to have access to this kind of unbiased information when making healthcare decisions.
Less really is more, as you promote, but for some reason that message is not effectively getting through to enough consumers in my opinion.
These talks are definitely one way to get that message out.
I’m Glad to have had the opportunity to learn about this work that you all do.
I have learned through experience that medication, if not fully understood, used or monitored properly can cost us all dearly,
Not only the physical harms associated with it but also by the financial costs, especially to our already over burdened healthcare system.
We as consumers also suffer the life altering consequences.
Sincerely,
Christine Martin
Alan Cassels @ TI
Posted at 10:01h, 25 MarchThank you for the kind comments Christine. We hope to continue to post more consumer-oriented material on the Therapeutics Initiative website, so please continue to check back.
Sincerely, Alan Cassels, Communications Director