Starfield Summit Agenda

Title: The Family Medicine Imperative: Bridging Across Borders, Rooted in Community and Collaboration. 

Date & Time: Monday, May 12, 2025: 5:30PM - 6:30PM

Location: Auditorium, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria St, Toronto, ON M5B 1T8

Overview:  Building on over three decades of international collaboration to strengthen family medicine globally, and more than ten years of family medicine development in Ethiopia, the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto is delighted to welcome international and local delegates to the 2025 Starfield Summit.  

Starfield Summits “provide a unique opportunity for conversation among a diverse group of leaders in primary care research, (education) and policy, intended to galvanize its participants, generate important discussion for public consumption, and enable research and policy agenda-setting in support of primary care function as an essential catalyst in health system reform. It embraces the principles of Implementation Science, which seeks to promote the integration of research into policy and practice”. 

The Toronto Starfield Summit 2025 acknowledges the critical role of primary care in achieving health and health equity, and recognizes the common and significant challenges faced in securing access to high-quality primary care around the world. Convening with a critical question of “how can family medicine enhance health system performance, through each of the three components of the primary health care (PHC) approach?”, primary health care experts and champions across a range of disciplines and from low- middle- and high-income countries- including roughly half from Ontario- will share their experience in addressing common challenges with a view to ultimately leverage fit-for-purpose family medicine to improve the health of individuals and communities.  

In line with our goal to foster mutual learning among experts from different settings, the May 12 2025 Starfield Opening Dialogue highlights the deep and long-standing relationship between the DFCM at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Addis Ababa University (AAU) Family Medicine which have partnered over the past twelve years to support the launch of the first family medicine residency training program in Ethiopia in 2013. 

We will hear of Dr. Jane Philpott’s rich experience of family medicine in Niger and her founding work alongside Dr. Dawit Wondimagegn, both champions of family medicine, as our two institutions began this journey 12 yrs ago. Both highly regarded national health system leaders, advocates, and academics, Drs Philpott and Wondimagegn will reflect on the successes and challenges in both our settings of strengthening primary care and optimizing the contribution of family medicine to PHC-oriented health systems.   

Through reflection and conversation, we aim for this Starfield Opening Dialogue “The Family Medicine Imperative:  Bridging Across Borders, Rooted in Community and Collaboration” to ignite a dynamic and hopeful conversation on the future of family medicine founded on a history of partnership and knowledge exchange with our local and international partners. 

We aspire for this this unique Starfield Summit to be an opportunity to build stronger bridges of ever-more inclusive collaboration empowered by family medicine leadership.

Objectives:

1. To highlight the importance of high-quality primary care in securing the health of individuals and communities through PHC-oriented health systems, in all settings. 

2. To discuss the contributions and challenges in optimizing the contribution of family medicine to PHC-oriented health systems.  
3. To ignite reflection and discussions among Summit participants

Panelists & Moderator Information 

• Dr. Jane Philpott is Chair of Ontario's Primary Care Action Team with a mandate to ensure that by 2029, everyone in Ontario is connected to a family doctor or primary care nurse practitioner working in a publicly funded system. She is a Professor of Family Medicine, and former Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She was also CEO of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization from 2020 to 2024. Dr. Philpott spent the first decade of her medical career in Niger, West Africa. In 1998, she moved to Stouffville, Ontario, where she served as a family physician for 17 years and as Chief of Family Medicine at Markham Stouffville Hospital. In 2015, Dr. Philpott was elected as the Member of Parliament for Markham-Stouffville. She served in numerous federal cabinet positions from 2015 to 2019, including Minister of Health, Minister of Indigenous Services, President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government. 
• Dr. Dawit Wondimagegn is the former Chief Executive Director of the College of Health Sciences (CHS), Vice President of Addis Ababa University (AAU), Chair of AAU’s, Department of Psychiatry and Director of Graduate Programs for AAU, CHS in Ethiopia. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at AAU, a Consultant Psychiatrist, Tikur Anbessa Hospital, Co-chair and Director, Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration-TAAAC and the National Lead, African Health Observatory Platform- Ethiopia National Centre. 

Moderators:

• Dr. Danielle Martin is Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM), University of Toronto. DFCM is the largest academic department of family medicine in the world and home to the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Family Medicine and Primary Care. 

• Dr. Praseedha Janakiram is a staff physician at the Crossroads Clinic, Women's College Hospital, a clinic providing comprehensive medical services to newly arrived refugee. She is the faculty lead for the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Family Medicine, and an assistant professor in the  Department of Family and Community Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.  

DFCM Conference (event #1)

Date: May 13, 8:00AM – 4:00PM

Location: Highland Hall, UTSC, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough, ON M1C 1A4

As part of your attendance at the Starfield Summit, we have invited all delegates to attend the DFCM Conference on May 13

Information about workshops offered and agenda, plus FAQs about the event can be found on the conference website. Starfield Summit delegates are invited to attend the morning workshop, titled “Harvesting insights to inform the 2025 Starfield Summit”

Starfield Summit Dinner | An Evening of Art, Health, and Global Dialogue at the Aga Khan Museum and the Ismaili Centre (event #2)

Date: Tuesday, May 13, 5:30–9:00 PM  

This is a ticketed event. Register here. The deadline to register is April 30, 2025.

You are invited to join us for An Evening of Art, Health, and Global Dialogue at the Aga Khan Museum and the Ismaili Centre – Toronto 

Hosted at the Ismaili Centre Toronto and Aga Khan Museum, this gathering will welcome global health leaders from the University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM), delegates of the 2025 Starfield Summit, and Ismaili primary care providers. The event will feature an inspiring Art and Health talk facilitated by the Aga Khan Museum, followed by a dinner and rich conversation on the future of primary care. 

We will travel as a group to the Aga Khan Museum following the DFCM Conference. We will be travelling by private coach.  

Please note that the order of the session is subject to change*

Guiding question: How to optimize the contribution of Family Medicine/High-quality Primary Care to health system performance through the three components of PHC?

Please note that the order of the session is subject to change*

In line with the concepts of “participation” and “responsiveness” that are central to PHC, we seek input from participants in crafting/refining the final program. We include with the present document “Preparatory Work”. The purpose of this preparatory work is: 

1. Engage reflection about family medicine, primary care and health systems in your context, through the lens of the three components of the PHC approach 

2. Gather information to inform the details of the Summit program 

Although the deadline to submit your responses has passed, we encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the survey questions if you haven't had the chance to do so yet. View them here. 

We submit additional questions for you to ponder as you prepare for the Summit, for which we do not expect written answers.  

• What is the relationship between FM/FP and high-quality primary care? 
• How is the term Primary Health Care (PHC) used in your health system, if at all?  
• What has promoted the development of family medicine in your setting? 
• What challenges does family medicine face in your health system?  
• How have you seen family medicine successfully support PHC, universal healthcare (UHC), and/or the SDGs in your health system? How would you like to see it leveraged in your health system to support PHC, UHC, SDGs? What do you think is needed to see this achieved (e.g., policies, infrastructure, leadership)?