With the holiday season upon us once again, I want to take a moment to thank all of our faculty, staff, and residents for working so hard to get us through a very challenging time. We’ve been through a lot this year, and it’s been hard on all of us in different ways.
Despite the challenges, I want to share some thoughts on why I am grateful and hopeful as I look forward to my own holiday break (after my days on call!).
Globally, we are privileged to live in a stable, wealthy country that offers my family and me safety, security, and opportunity. I’m a dedicated watcher of The National, and I see what is unfolding around the world — the war in Ukraine; the oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran; the crisis of corruption, gangsterism, and poverty in Haiti, Somalia, and many other nations; and even the war on truth just south of us in the United States. Climate change is impacting everyone, including us here in Canada, but we are still fortunate to have the means and support to mitigate these impacts in a way that many nations do not.
I am also reminded over and over of my own privilege, and of the ongoing inequities many of our fellow citizens here at home face daily; inequities that as a white professional male I do not face — racism, sexism, anti-2SLGBTQIA+ sentiments, and more.
I am grateful to be supported by amazing colleagues at all levels. Nationally, in my work with the College of Family Physicians of Canada, AMS Healthcare, the National Consortium for Indigenous Medical Education, and the Association of Academic Chairs of Family Medicine, I get to learn from and share ideas with committed, passionate leaders from across Canada who are dedicated to improving the health of all Canadians, advancing health equity, and ensuring that family medicine training and practice is modernized to provide better, more integrated care for all while also providing healthy, sustainable work environments for the entire team. Not a small task!
Provincially, here in Ontario, we have a collaborative family medicine community that works together and shares their ideas and lends their effort to common causes. Groups like the Academic Departments of Family Medicine, the INSPIRE-PHC research network, the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario, the Ontario College of Family Physicians, and the OMA Section on General & Family Practice have all come together to support each other and connect with our partners in the health system, including public health, Ontario Health, and the Ontario Ministry of Health (who, I have to say, are all really trying hard to help make things better, even when it may be hard to see from the outside). The recent Ontario Science Table Briefs on Primary Care (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) are a great example of work that has come out of those collaborations.
At the regional level, our FLA Ontario Health Team has somehow managed to keep looking forward and making progress towards a more integrated system of care with the goal of providing a person-centred health home for all. Dean Jane Philpott and the leadership team at Queen’s Health Sciences have advanced their plan for Radical Collaboration, and we are making plans for an exciting new family medicine-focused expansion partnership with Lakeridge Health. These are all important initiatives that give me hope for a better tomorrow and help sustain me through the longer days when everything is going off the rails.
Finally, I get to come to work and engage with you. Whether we work together daily or only get to connect on occasion, I am grateful to be surrounded by such a caring, thoughtful, and dedicated team. This is a group that cares about what they do, the people they work with, and the people and communities they serve.
My sincere wishes for a restorative and happy holiday season to you and your families and loved ones. I look forward with (cautious) optimism to a better year for 2023 and to seeing what we are able to accomplish together.
Dr. Michael Green
Department Head