On the Road Again

As president, my role is to be the official spokesperson for our association and its membership. And as part of this role, I really enjoy getting out into different communities to engage with our members – something which the President’s Tour allows me to do. It also allows me to gain a clearer understanding of the issues facing my colleagues, and a clearer understanding of the personal impact these issues have on them and on patient care. Most of all, it allows me to meet some truly amazing and dedicated colleagues. 

Last week I did a swing through the Fraser valley with stops in Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Both communities have a high level of physician engagement and awareness. The conversations were robust with good discussion about current issues facing our profession, and our professional role in system redesign and advocating for patient care. 

The same themes arose in both communities:

• There is a strong feeling among doctors that they need and want a more constructive relationship with Health Authorities to allow for more physician influence in decision making.
• There is a great interest and excitement about the new specialist and facility-based engagement. Finally some hope, mixed with skepticism that anything will change. Lots of questions as to when it will be coming to their community, how it will work, etc. We are hard at work on developing this initiative and will be communicating with you in the next little while.
• Some expressed concerns about the provincial privileging project and how that could adversely affect them; adverse effects of inflexible implementation of privileging dictionaries, especially based on current doctor-Health Authority culture. And concern about having to go through multiple applications for facility and Health Authority privileging.

The issues were very similar to those expressed by physicians in my visits to Vancouver and North Vancouver the week before. In fact, I have come to realize there are similar concerns in the suburban-urban areas of BC. There are significant commonalities such as the Health Authority relationships, the privileging process and recent changes to CMPA. The differences lie between rural and suburban/urban. The rural doctors are concerned about having a voice in ensuring that clinical resources are available, having clinical backup in complex cases and safe and effective patient evacuation and transportation. Urban physicians are more focused on trying to initiate engagement with other colleagues, facility resource allocation and workload.
 
I have been asked what happens to the information I gather from these meetings. I’ve been able to provide members with information on issues when they are brought up, and have linked members to the appropriate department for more information and support. I have briefed the Board at Board meetings on the issues I am encountering, and have also provided guidance on how some members can become engaged and have a voice in our association. And, many times, members were unaware of the actions that our association has already taken on their behalf – action on issues such as the privileging dictionaries, the new facility engagement strategy and the CMPA coverage to name a few.
 
So far I have visited 16 communities in my first six months as President. Next up are Richmond, South Surrey / White Rock and Vancouver Island in the Spring. For information on dates, keep an eye on our events calendar on the Doctors of BC website and watch for invitations sent from Doctors of BC and your elected delegates. 

I want to thank each and every physician who has come out to meet with me, and I look forward to many conversations as we work towards making positive change and shaping a “made in BC” health care system that better serves our patients. 

- Dr Bill Cavers

2014-2015 President