Chair's message: Written from the WONCA Conference in Portugal
Chair's Message
I try to walk to work most days. Whatever else the day brings, I know I will have 45 minutes’ worth of steps, which is good for my mental and physical health. I’m also tracing a very familiar route – one I have walked since I was a teenager. I grew up in this downtown Toronto neighbourhood, and I’ve seen a lot of change. It’s a chance to look around and observe how health in a big city gets built or dismantled in real time.
On the street, you see it all: education, transit, hunger, homelessness, loneliness. Every driver of good or poor health is visible when I really open my eyes to look. I walk past a food bank. That lineup has been getting longer every week it seems, and it includes more families and more people clearly dressed for work. I have patients who work but still can’t make ends meet, and I know that if someone is heading to work from this line, they almost certainly don’t have benefits. If they can’t afford groceries, they also won’t be able to fill their prescriptions. Sooner or later they will end up in the emergency department.
There are lots of happy moments too. I walk past the gates of our University of Toronto campus. It’s early fall and I can feel the excitement of the students. Education is such a major determinant of health, and I love my job at the university working with all of you to improve family medicine education and scholarship in the broadest sense. Still, too many young people in this city screen themselves out of a career in medicine early, not being able to imagine it for all kinds of reasons. But the shining faces and matching t-shirts of orientation week make my heart swell.
We can learn from our colleagues who are doing the same thing all over the world. I’m writing this message from Lisbon, Portugal at the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) World Conference 2025. Here at this global family medicine conference is our largest DFCM showing ever: a whopping 19 posters will be presented this week by our faculty and staff! Topics range from advancing women’s health leadership globally, to international partnerships our department is engaged in to improve family medicine around the world, to AI scribes in family medicine, to a talk I am giving about our departmental strategic plan! For me, it feels like a major achievement to be able to share Primary Matters at an international conference. I feel proud of how we were able to build community through the building of our strategic plan during such a high-stress time for family medicine. The fact that this topic was selected by the conference organizers speaks to the importance of connection, alignment, and shared purpose—not just within our local department, but across the global family medicine community.
I’m so proud to be a member of this diverse and wonderful team. The DFCM Awards Ceremony is coming up soon, where we’ll celebrate the outstanding contributions of our colleagues – it’s always such a heartwarming event. I hope you will be able to join us, and consider nominating a colleague for a DFCM award in the future. We all need to feel appreciated for our contributions, and there is much to celebrate about the work underway in our department.
