October

I had a good day today. I enjoy the challenges of being president of the BC Medical Association. What crosses my desk in the president’s office are issues that have strategic implications for the doctors of BC and for the association, and ultimately for our patients. There are, of course, also problems that can be difficult to solve. The range of issues that I am required to think about and act upon makes my job as your president enormously challenging and interesting, but the joy comes from the people I meet, and the colleagues and staff with whom I work.

There is no villain in the wait times problem—the situation is the result of a host of poor decisions by government, professional bodies, and institutions.

The BCMA’s daily News Flash is edited by the BCMA’s Ms Laura Kohli, who reviews medically related articles in local and national newspapers and other media. One of the major recent issues has been the “waiting list” phenomenon, and it provides rich ore indeed for the observer.

An examination of News Flash is instructive. Even a cursory look at the items covered in the past month (April 2005) illustrates the following:

References

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Dr Michael Wolochow died 4 September 2005 at Vancouver General Hospital. Born in Calgary in 1921 to Dr Paul and Jennie Wolochow (Bruser), Mike grew up in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, and graduated in medicine from the University of Alberta in 1944. In 1941, he joined the armed forces and became an officer in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. After the war, Mike furthered his medical training in the areas of pathology and general surgery, eventually settling in Vancouver in 1951 and establishing a family practice that spanned 45 years.

In August Dr James C. Hogg, a researcher at Providence Health Care’s iCAPTURE Centre, was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Dr Hogg is one of the best-known pulmonary pathologists in the world. He has made major contributions to the understanding of lung disease and continues to pursue an active research program.

So, what’s so different about this year? Normally, in the first half of August business exigencies remain properly buried and the expected chaos of September consciously ignored. Here it is the dog days of summer, a time that in my experience at least, lent itself to the consumption of afternoon flagons of local ale while reading trashy novels and putting your super-ego in park. Until I actually stopped for a minute to take stock I hadn’t realized that something was fundamentally different with this picture.