This article originally appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of the Ontario Medical Review magazine.
Will you join us?
As I write and as you read this, we are each caught in a moment in time. You may be five months into your medical career or have five days left before retirement. There are times when we’ve experienced great achievements and equally great challenges. These moments make us who we are today.
And me? After two decades in the emergency department and in medical, surgical and chronic care at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, I am working as a mental health hospitalist at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. I am married to a pediatrician and we are raising four teenagers. Beyond that sweeping description, I will tell you about three moments that defined who I am today.
I attended the McMaster medical affairs office in person to hear that I was accepted into medical school. With tears of joy, I felt my sister take my hands and say “There, Rose, you made it.”
Seven years into my medical career and nine months pregnant, my telephone rang after morning hospital rounds. It was a coroner calling to ask me questions about a patient I had seen two days earlier, now deceased. I answered as best as I could but with a sense of doom and unwarranted shame for a bad outcome, the kind we are supposed to take in stride in medicine, just part of the job.
After speaking passionately (and honestly) about the issues we faced, I was elected to the OMA Board of Directors.
Now, I may not know your story, or all your defining moments, but across specialties and the province, we have shared the experience of weathering this pandemic. With every crisis comes tremendous opportunity. I believe that our collective response to this moment will define us.
I know energy is limited and burnout is high – and many of you are doing what you can to “fill your cup.” If your cup is empty, I have been there with you. But weathering the storm afforded me new opportunities and slowly, I started to get filled up again. At first, it was a meaningful interaction with a colleague or being thanked by a family. Later, I found purpose in giving back to make a difference in my medical community as Medical Staff Association president and now as OMA president.
If your cup needs filling, our Prescription for Ontario: Doctors’ 5-Point Plan for Better Health Care could be a source of inspiration. The Prescription includes achievable ideas to get rid of wait times, stamp out the stigma surrounding mental health, ensure patients get the care they need in the hospital and continue to be cared for seamlessly in the community. It outlines how to navigate the next public health crisis and preserving the economy for Ontario. And how we can do it all as teams of providers; spending less time documenting and more time doing what doctors do best – listening to and caring for people.
I hope you will join us as we change the system and shift the culture, together. We don’t have to have it all figured out to start leading the way. Let’s just do it.