A local family physician has recently been named president of an Ontario health care college.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we sat down with Dr. Jennifer Young, a local doctor who was recently named President of the Ontario College of Family Physicians.
Q: Can you give me a little background on you?
A: I’ve been a family physician since 1990 and I moved to Collingwood in 1999 after having travelled. I live in town. I have three daughters who are now in university. We have called Collingwood home and love it here. In fact, my kids come back from university and thank us for raising them here. (laughs)
I settled here with this group of clinicians I work with now and opened this practice.
We call this kind of practice ‘cradle to grave,’ (serving people) of all ages and all problems. I also look after my patients in the hospital.
I do low-risk obstetrics, I do approximately an emergency shift a week. I’ve just changed my position from being chief of family practice at the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital... I also had a leadership role in our family health team, I was the quality improvement lead.
Now, I’ve given up those roles in order to take on this new role.
Q: When did you know that you wanted to be a doctor?
A: My first degree was in psychology at McGill (University). I’ve always enjoyed people and wondered about dealing with people in that way. I found, when I was in undergrad, I enjoyed both the psychological and also the physical side of the way our brains work and the way our body is wired, and how that relates to behaviour. It was that interest in both sides that made me realize that I did want to pursue applying for medicine.
Q: You were recently named President of the Ontario College of Family Physicians. Can you tell me a little bit about that? What does that appointment entail?
A: I’ve been on the board of the Ontario College of Family Physicians for six years. This particular college of family physicians looks at providing continuing medical education for practising family physicians. We also advocate for the role of family physicians in our health care teams... and highlight the role they play. We connect our patients to all levels of care.
Family physicians really are the hub of first-class medical care.
Q: Why is there a need for advocacy for the role of family physicians?
A: I think 20 years ago, there wasn’t a need for that advocacy. These days, there have been increasing numbers of people who provide roles within the health care system who can do aspects of care that family physicians can also do. In some circles there are some feelings that (family physicians) can be replaced by less expensive caregivers.
For example, nurse practitioners are viewed by the government as a less expensive way of managing a lot of medical problems that a family physician would see in their day.
There is absolutely a role for nurse practitioners and we work very well with nurse practitioners within our family health team. It helps us with some of the more minor illnesses and management of preventive care. But, they cannot provide for all of the needs of a family practice.
So finding that balance where teamwork optimizes the ability to manage more people in a community would be ideal with a combination of nurse practitioners and family physicians.
Q: What are the differences between the different regulatory bodies for doctors in Ontario?
A: We have three bodies that we deal with.
One is the Ontario Medical Association. They negotiate our salaries. That’s big in the news right now because we haven’t had a contract in five years, but we’ve had 8% in cuts.
There’s the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Those are the guys that give us the licence to practice. If we were a bad doctor, they would take our licence away. So, that’s our regulatory college.
The College of Family Physicians deals with issues that relate to family physicians in our system in terms of advocacy and education. There are 13,500 physicians who are members of this organization.
Q: What are some misconceptions about your job?
A: Family physicians have a wide scope of practice. We can manage a lot of conditions where (some people) might think they need to go to a specialist.
For example, a woman might think that she needs to go to a gynecologist for her Pap test. Pap tests are routine care for us. We are able to manage a variety of different (ailments and diseases) without having to go to a specialist.
I think sometimes there is a feeling that specialists are better. With specialists, they are a specialist in a disease. They are not a specialist in you. A person has a context that a family physician would know much better than a specialist would know. They also would know about the other, say, four things that you might be dealing with and be able to manage weighing your values and the care that is being offered more centred on you as an individual.
Q: Now that you’ve been named president, is there anything new that you want to bring forward to the college?
A: As president, I’m the spokesperson for our board. The board makes decisions about strategic focus, and we have a strategic plan, and those are my marching orders. (laughs)
But, one of the things that I feel passionately about that is part of our strategic plan is health equity and making sure that everybody in Ontario has access to primary care.
Looking at the social determinants of health is also part of our plan, which are things like wage disparity, which allows for people to have access to things that keep them healthy like food and shelter. We want to make our physicians to be aware of the impact that can have on patients. Also, being able to connect our patients with services that can help.
Q: Do you have anything else you’d like people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: Another thing I’m passionate about is the Choosing Wisely movement. It’s about reducing unnecessary testing and treatment. Often we have so many tests that are available to us, and sometimes we over-test and we over-treat. There are medications that are dangerous. There are tests that can cause harm because there isn’t any proven value of the test. (It’s about) raising awareness that more medicine is not necessarily better medicine. We need to look at our choices in a more careful way. Sometimes more is more harm.
We’re heading into the cough and cold season right now. Treating viruses with antibiotics can do a person harm and does society harm because we end up with antibiotics that won’t work. An example of choosing wisely would be to choose not to have an antibiotic unless you’re absolutely sure that you have an infection caused by a bacteria, because it won’t help the common cold.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
