Prescribing a wheelchair – a life-altering piece of health equipment – to  a patient without follow-up to check comfort and proper use happens far too often and is a disservice to society, says Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Bill Miller.

Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Robert Tarzwell’s research is creating a space for neuroimaging in psychiatry that has not existed until now. Two studies co-authored by Dr. Tarzwell that were published in 2015 have demonstrated the efficacy and accuracy of using brain scans – and more specifically, single-positron emission computed tomography (SPECT) functional neuroimaging – to help diagnose and ultimately better guide treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

As 2015 draws to a close and we are inundated with reports of violence and a growing humanitarian crisis, it is understandable that people may be feeling more miserable than festive and merry this holiday season.

Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute scientist Dr. Helen Tremlett’s favourite discovery during her year-long sabbatical spent studying the microbiome – that constellation of trillions of bacterial microbes that reside mostly in the gut (but also all over the body) – is that baby elephants practice coprophagia. In other words, they eat their herd’s feces. Although the elephants’ behaviour, common in many animal species, may be unseemly to humans, one vital purpose of eating dung is to provide good, foreign bacteria to the young elephants missing them from their digestive systems.

An important and unprecedented collaboration between Canadian surgeons, obstetricians/gynaecologists, and family doctors aims to address the wave of closures of maternity services and small-volume surgical programs in rural parts of Canada.

The Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, a Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) centre, has topped 193 research sites around the world having recruited the most participants for an international clinical trial investigating the efficacy of a new multiple sclerosis (MS) drug called ocrelizumab.

A new evidence-based guideline published recently in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) gives Canadian physicians the tools they need to better treat patients with iliofemoral deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (blood clots in the deep veins of the thigh and groin). Vancouver Coastal Health researcher and interventional radiologist at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), Dr.