medical

Pharmaceutical company marketing negatively influences prescribing

Doctors’ prescribing habits are heavily influenced by payments, gifts, and free meals from pharmaceutical companies, leading to more expensive, less appropriate and more drugs being prescribed, a new Cochrane review finds. This can seriously harm both individual patients and health systems. Pharmaceutical companies use a variety of strategies to market and promote their drugs. This can include one-on-one visits by sales reps to doctors' offices and hospitals, gifts and payments including for example paid meals, travel costs to conferences, entertainment, consulting fees, honoraria for participation in advisory boards, and advertising.

York Region Council approves $25M to support York University’s new School of Medicine

TORONTO, Nov. 27, 2025 — York University welcomes York Region’s decision to make a significant contribution of $25 million to support the new School of Medicine set to open to students in 2028.  The $25 million commitment will help fund the physical infrastructure and development of the School of Medicine, which will be built in […]

New research finds specific learning strategies can enhance AI model effectiveness in hospitals

If data used to train artificial intelligence models for medical applications, such as hospitals across the Greater Toronto Area, differs from the real-the world data, it could lead to patient harm. A new study

How to find more information about a drug that your doctor prescribed

You’ve just been given a prescription for a new drug from your doctor. Your doctor told you why she was prescribing the medication, gave you its name and some information about common side-effects. Your pharmacist is also available to help you use the medication properly, but you want more details and general information.