Scale Up Your Practice by Obesity Canada

Screening for Complications Related to Obesity with Dr. James Kim

Scale Up Your Practice by Obesity Canada

Show Notes

🎙️This episode is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Eli Lilly Canada

What happens when a symptom is explained away too quickly? For people living with obesity, concerns like fatigue, shortness of breath, poor sleep, or pain are too often viewed through the lens of weight first. That can delay the right questions, the right tests, and the right care. In this episode, Dr. James Kim joins the podcast for a practical conversation about screening for obesity-related complications without letting weight bias narrow the clinical picture. We explore how healthcare professionals can recognize diagnostic overshadowing, build more consistent screening workflows, and make care safer, more respectful, and more evidence-based for people living with obesity.

In this episode Why diagnostic overshadowing can lead to missed or delayed diagnoses for people living with obesity

How to build practical screening workflows for obesity complications in primary care

What clinicians should know about MASLD, sleep apnea, insomnia, and cardiometabolic risk

How equipment and testing limitations can affect the reliability of screening results

How to talk about obesity complications without blame, shame, or stigma

Additional resources Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline: https://utm.guru/uq74A

Chapter: Assessment of People Living With Obesity: https://utm.guru/uq74B

Free course: Obesity Assessment Essentials: https://utm.guru/uq74C

Calibre: Practical Clinical Strategies for Obesity Management If this episode leaves you thinking about how to strengthen your own approach to obesity care, Obesity Canada’s Calibre course is designed to help. Calibre is an accredited course for healthcare professionals who want practical, evidence-based tools they can apply in real clinical settings. The course combines self-paced learning with live, interactive sessions, helping learners build confidence in obesity assessment, treatment, communication, and patient-centred care. The next cohort runs September 3 through October 7 . Learn more & register: https://utm.guru/upbeo

Learning objectives Apply evidence-based resources from the Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines to select and interpret appropriate screening tests for obesity-related complications.

Analyze cardiovascular, metabolic, and mechanical diagnostic results to address knowledge gaps and guide individualized obesity management.

Evaluate how diagnostic overshadowing and systemic weight bias lead to under-screening or the misinterpretation of symptoms in patients living with obesity.

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Disclosures This episode script was developed using NotebookLM to synthesize complex source materials into a structured educational format. The tool was used to analyze the Canadian Obesity Education Competencies (COECs), the Obesity Canada Strategic Plan, and guest-specific research. Specific prompts were utilized to extract relevant learning objectives, map them to CanMEDS roles, and generate competency-based interview questions. While NotebookLM assisted in drafting the narrative arc and educational framework, all content has been reviewed, fact-checked, and refined by the podcast hosts and Obesity Canada's clinical experts. This ensures the script aligns with current Clinical Practice Guidelines and authentically represents the lived experience perspective.

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