Equity, Diversity and Inclusion:

An OMA core value

My friends, my colleagues

Every OMR starts with a message from the President, addressing the most current relevant issues. Today in the midst of COVID-19, I’d like to dedicate this space to an older, even more virulent pandemic – the systemic discrimination and racism experienced by many of our members and patients.  

Like many others, I was sickened by the video of George Floyd’s murder. But it took real reflection, and challenging discussions, to understand the experience of my Black colleagues, friends and patients in seeing this video. It’s an experience I can only work to comprehend, because I have never walked through this world, through our hospitals and medical schools, identified by the colour of my skin. There has been real suffering, and real harm, done to many. The time is long past for those of us living with privilege, to acknowledge their experience and harm, our role in sustaining the system, and, in fact, the benefit we reap from our privilege and their discrimination.  

This is a hard journey. Like all journeys, it starts with a single step: looking for and listening to those stories and voices we have missed, and ignored, along the way.  

With that, I turn this space over to Black physician leaders. Please join me in reading their words, contemplating their experiences and struggling with our responsibilities for the past – and the future.  

Dr. Samantha Hill 
OMA President

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the OMA

As a white man, the last two months have been a time of personal reflection and learning. I have no lived experience of what it’s like to navigate racism in our society, and with widespread coverage and awareness of these issues in the public discourse, it has brought an opportunity to listen and to consider my own place and privilege. 

The Ontario Medical Association stands for diversity in all its forms. In fact, diversity is a core value of the Association, and one that I share. Despite this, the OMA needs to dig deeper to learn about different forms of oppression, like systemic racism, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, and the different ways that social injustice impacts the lives of marginalized physicians, the health care environment and all patients. Expect to hear the OMA talking more about this and taking more of a leadership role here. 

As someone who can have influence, I am committing to do this to the best of my ability.  

You will be hearing more from the OMA in the months to come, but for now, the voices you should be listening to are Dr. Onye Nnorom, Dr. Clover Hemans, and medical students Maclite Tesfaye and Osman Mahamud. 

Allan O’Dette 
OMA Chief Executive Officer