What do you do at the MJLH?
I am the Executive Online Editor – I manage the Online Editorial Board by coordinating the blog posts that appear on this website and updating the journal’s social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Qu’est-que vous avez fait cet été?
J’ai travaillé comme assistante de recherche au Centre de génomique et politiques, un centre multidisciplinaire à la Faculté de médecine à McGill. My research focused on genetic discrimination – where employers or health insurance companies might deny you insurance or employment based on your genetic predisposition, even if those predispositions may never manifest as real symptoms. As genetic testing becomes more mainstream (with private companies like 23andme offering direct-to-consumer testing that doesn’t require a doctor) and knowledge about our genetics more advanced, there is a need to think about how we store and share our genetic information.
At the end of the summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Israel, where I participated in a summer program on socioeconomic rights, offered jointly by the McGill and Hebrew University of Jerusalem law faculties.
Where do you get your health news?
CBC and BBC always have interesting health news. I also like to browse Timothy Caulfield’s tweets (@CaulfieldTim) for interesting headlines – he’s a professor of health law at University of Alberta.
In your opinion, which “big issues” in health law will future lawyers have to deal with?
Criminalization of HIV non-disclosure will continue to be an issue that is debated in the courts. In my opinion, there is more work to be done in educating people about the changing nature of HIV as a chronic condition (rather than the death sentence it was a decade or two ago) in developed countries.
I foresee that privacy issues surrounding e-health records will become a major issue as we move into paperless data storage. In September, the CBC reported that a Saskatchewan school received faxes containing medical information by mistake; if we’re having problems with faxes still, there is a good chance that we’ll be working out issues of e-health records for many years!
Avez-vous essayé un Montréal Food Truck cet été? Si oui, quel est votre truck favori?
Je n’ai pas essayé beaucoup de Food Trucks, mais j’ai essayé les saucisses de Nomade 06 et le sandwich de Grilled Cheese de Gargantua. I’m sad I never got to try food from the Au Pied de Cochon truck that everyone was raving about!
McGill Journal of Law and Health 