Inside "The Green Room"

| 28 October 2021

Fall is well underway and around the world there are holidays that recognize the hard work of the spring and summer that give thanks for a bountiful harvest. Here in the DFM, it also offers a chance to recognize that over the past year-and-a-half our staff, learners, and faculty have stepped up to meet the unique challenges of the pandemic and, more recently, the heightened demand for services as we work towards recovery.

Burnout and human resource shortages continue to stress our ability to deliver the services to meet demand. They have also highlighted areas where there are significant gaps in our health-care systems, both at the provincial level and locally. I want to take a moment to thank all of you for what you have done and continue to do to provide the best quality care and education.

Here at DFM, we are planning a series of events the week of November 22-26 in recognition of these efforts, so stay tuned for details! The gradual lifting of pandemic-related public health measures that has come with increasing immunization rates and falling case rates has allowed us to safely resume in-person teaching, small in-person meetings and retreats, and some scaled-back social events. At each event I’ve been able to attend, it’s been a joy to overhear the happy voices and (for those times we are not masked) to see the smiling faces of colleagues I’ve only seen on Zoom or Teams for many months!

We are now able to resume forward-thinking planning on how to pick up with the implementation of our strategic plan as we move into the recovery phase of the pandemic. The landscape has changed over the past two years, and not only due to the pandemic. Under the direction of Dean Jane Philpott, Queen’s Health Sciences (QHS) has launched a new strategic plan, “Radical Collaboration,” with big goals that align very well with those of the DFM. The QHS plan places interprofessional and cross-disciplinary work in clinical care, education, and research; impact at both the community level and globally; and renewed partnerships with primary care and communities at the centre of its strategy.

We will take some time to review our priorities and objectives in relationship to these new QHS priorities and reflect on lessons learned, progress made, and new challenges that are emerging as a result of the pandemic. We will be reaching out to all of you in different ways as we do this, and your input will be critical for our success.

I hope you all will be energized and excited to engage as we chart our way forward, and I look forward to seeing many of you in person as our ability to connect face-to-face continues to improve!

Dr. Michael Green

Department Head

Department Head Blog

Publish Date

Thu, 10/28/2021 - 12:55

Inside "The Green Room"

Inside "The Green Room"

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