This article originally appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of the Ontario Medical Review magazine.
First cohort reflect on experience, skills gained and plans for the future in the OMA-Rotman program
For Dr. Jessica Kwapis, learning storytelling as a leadership skill has already influenced her approach to solutions in her northern Ontario community of Kapuskasing.
A general surgeon and chief of staff of the Sensenbrenner Hospital, Dr. Kwapis is part of a cohort of 30 physicians finishing up the Ontario Medical Association’s 2023 Physician Leadership Program.
“There was a speaker (faculty member) who provided multiple examples of why storytelling is such an effective tool for getting people to engage with the need for change, much more so than presenting data and statistics,” she said.
Dr. Kwapis incorporated storytelling into proposals to change the funding model for physicians providing surgical, anesthetic and obstetrical services in her own region.
“This physician leadership program helped pave the way to let me see that I really want to engage more in learning and training on the leadership front” – Dr. Jessica Kwapis
“The more stories we’ve been able to include about a patient whose life was saved because of the presence of a provider, or a patient who had a poor outcome because of the unfortunate absence of a provider, really provide a lot of support to the data,” required for the presentation she said.
This year’s leadership program, presented in partnership with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, wraps up in November. The physicians participating complete four modules, running over 2.5 days each, spread from spring to fall. As part of the coursework, each student proposes an action learning project that will bring change to the health-care system.
Dr. Kwapis explains that in the past, remote northern communities have been served by single surgeons, anesthetists or obstetricians providing 24/7 on-call coverage. But those health-care providers can’t provide that coverage indefinitely. Her action learning project would change that. It proposes a new collaborative model of care to provide stabilization of surgical and obstetrical services in the region.
Dr. Kwapis has now been accepted into the Rotman School of Management’s Global Executive MBA program in Healthcare and the Life Sciences. She will continue working in Kapuskasing while taking the courses remotely.
“This Physician Leadership Program helped pave the way to let me see that I really want to engage more in learning and training on the leadership front.”
The PLP is partly a succession plan for OMA physician leadership, Board Chair Dr. Cathy Faulds said in a webinar designed to kick off the course last fall. But it also benefits a physician’s patient care and the future of the system as a whole, she said.
“I think from the board chair’s position, our vision and mission of the organization are to advocate and to support doctors, to strengthen the leadership role of doctors in caring for patients, and to really make sure that we position physicians to be the trusted voice in transforming Ontario’s health-care system,” Dr. Faulds said.
Family physician Dr. Jemy Joseph took on leadership roles during the COVID-19 pandemic in her work as an emergency department doctor in Scarborough and when practising remotely in northern communities. But, until now, she didn’t have a chance to take the type of leadership training available from the PLP.
She said the program has given her the scaffolding to build on practical skills such as negotiation, influence, working with teams, conflict resolution and resiliency.
“That’s where this course comes into play, instead of just waving a sign outside of politicians’ offices, or just knocking on doors that won’t open,” Dr. Joseph said.
“How do you get those doors to open? How do you present your case? How do you bring people together, especially from different opposing viewpoints and competing interests? So taking the game up to the next level is definitely what I can see as a huge part of what comes out of this course.”
Dr. Joseph’s project aims to enhance the locum system in Ontario, improving logistics, such as transportation and getting paid on time, for doctors covering for physicians in rural and remote communities.
“It’s something that I’ve been very concerned and passionate about from the very beginning, as somebody who has done extensive rural medicine, and travelled to many, many rural and remote communities. It’s not just the clinical work, but the logistics that can be just as complicated.”
“How do you get those doors to open? How do you present your case? How do you bring people together, especially from different opposing viewpoints and competing interests? So taking the game up to the next level is definitely what I can see as a huge part of what comes out of this course” – Dr. Jemy Joseph
Dr. Ruben Hummelen sees a need to amplify the northern Ontario voice of physician leaders in the province. As a family physician, he splits his time between Hamilton and northern Indigenous communities in the Sioux Lookout region.
The Physician Leadership Program, he said, will help him come up with new clinical processes and negotiation skills to make a case to better staff his clinical group’s practice.
“I find that many problems that individual patients face have a lot to do with the system we work in. Improving ways of how referrals are tracked, or make medication more accessible, or make consultations with pharmacists more available — you can actually solve a lot of those problems on a system level as opposed to one-on-one with each patient.”
Dr. Hummelen’s project is to create a shared electronic medical record platform, to foster multi-disciplinary care.
His principal northern practice in Webequie First Nation, a remote community of 900 people, is only accessible by plane. Visiting allied health-care providers from different organizations don’t necessarily co-ordinate with each other, he said.
“For a physician, it is really hard to keep track of who is coming in when. And so the goal is to provide a platform where we can all communicate easily and keep track of people that are in urgent need of services without a physician needing to refer people all over the place.”
Dr. Hummelen said he plans to continue to serve in a leadership capacity in the north, where the opportunities for change are limitless and potential improvements can have a big impact.
“I’m still very much learning about the OMA and government and the big picture. In the end, lots of these initiatives will lead you to large organizations, including the OMA and, of course, the provincial and federal governments. So, it would be really helpful to learn more about how organizations function,” he said.
“Improving ways of how referrals are tracked, or make medication more accessible, or make consultations with pharmacists more available — you can actually solve a lot of those problems on a system level as opposed to one-on-one with each patient” – Dr. Ruben Hummelen
Dr. Faulds believes physician leaders like Drs. Hummelen, Joseph and Kwapis and their work are critical to building a strong, innovative health system in the north that attracts more physicians to work and settle there.
“Northern Ontario faces health-care disparities due to factors such as geographic isolation, limited health-care infrastructure and a shortage of health-care professionals,” she said. “Training physician leaders to return to northern regions helps to address these disparities and ensures that the needs of the population, and challenges such as cultural considerations, limited access to specialized care and higher prevalence of certain chronic conditions are addressed by leaders who understand the region.”
Dr. Meta van den Heuvel, a pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, took the OMA’s PLP to gain tools to collaborate with other professionals on a working group examining food insecurity among families visiting the hospital.
“Parents do not get a meal when their child is admitted, because, frankly, there’s no budget for it,” she said. “What I found difficult is that I had to interact suddenly with hospital management, the hospital CEO, nurses, social workers, about quite a different topic — not medical care — but getting food in our hospital.”
“The doctors in this cohort are united by their desire to develop and refine their leadership competencies, which encompass a wide range of skills such as communication, strategic thinking, decision making, team building and conflict resolution” – Dr. Meta van den Heuvel
Now she wants to advocate for systemic change in hospital-based inequities marginalized people may face, including access to healthy food, logistical challenges such as paying for parking and transportation, and discrimination in the hospital setting.
Dr. van den Heuvel was impressed with the potential of her fellow PLP students in the program and the quality of the program’s faculty, including OMA leaders and international health-care and business experts.
“As we learn from the management gurus, we are a large force. We have so many physicians together, and I was really surprised and positively motivated by the energy and enthusiasm of my co-participants ...Maybe we can use our force to have some systematic change,” Dr. van den Heuvel said.
The current PLP continues with the recruitment for the 2024 cohort underway. Dr. Faulds summed up the potential impact of those new leaders on helping transform our health system.
“The doctors in this cohort are united by their desire to develop and refine their leadership competencies, which encompass a wide range of skills such as communication, strategic thinking, decision making, team building and conflict resolution,” she said.
“I quote Mother Teresa, who said one drop in the ocean makes a difference. And so those 30 drops are going to come together to make a difference. And I really believe that over three years, 90 new skilled, trained leaders in our system will make a huge difference.”
Katherine Kerr is an Edmonton-based writer.