Patrick Sullivan is CMAJ's news and features editor.
Canadian Medical Association Journal 1995; 153: 1643-1644
[résumé]
Huggins, chair of the Council on Health Policy and Economics, was referring to a September meeting in Victoria where health ministers discussed alternatives to the fee-for-service system, but when board members met in October they also debated how the wind has picked up in areas as diverse as antismoking legislation and the future facing Canada's medicare system.
The latter topic occupied much of the board's time as it began studying ways of dealing with the job handed down by General Council last August: launching a national debate on the future of universal health care in Canada.
The board has decided that the first step in this process is production of a "vision statement" that will define physicians' vision of the health care system. Dr. Carole Guzmán, the associate secretary general, says the statement will be crucial because it will be used to communicate with the profession, public and the press.
The board began this "visioning work" in October and hopes to complete it during a December meeting. Dr. Douglas Sawyer, chair of the Committee on Ethics, said the CMA must state its vision because physician advocacy is essential if the health care system is to be protected.
Dr. Bill Acker, chair of the Political Action Committee, noted that it is important to recognize two components of the CMA's mission: protection of the health care system and representation of physicians' interests. His contention that the CMA must do more to protect physicians' interests received strong support from Dr. Léo-Paul Landry, the secretary general. "We have to balance our interests," he said. "At the recent AMA [Alberta Medical Association] annual meeting, it was clear that physicians want medical organizations to stand up and defend the profession more than ever."
In another area, the board stressed the need for medicine to speak from consensus positions on strategic issues facing the profession. With this in mind, the CMA will be stepping up its consultative and consensus-building process within the profession. This is already well under way with the CMA's divisions, the provincial/territorial associations. This process will be expanded to other medical associations in the near future.
"We need to sing from the same hymn book," said Dr. Drew Young of British Columbia, who referred to a recent decision by the College of Family Physicians of Canada to release a paper on physician remuneration when the country's health ministers met in Victoria in September. Young is worried that such unilateral actions threaten professional unity. "The best way to get to us is to divide us," he warned.
The board learned that CMA efforts to provide leadership-development programs for female physicians have been well received. Dr. Bob Woollard, chair of the Council on Medical Education, said a leadership workshop for women that was held in Toronto in November was "fully subscribed" by the second week in October. "Not only will it be a resounding success," he said, "but it also shows the CMA playing a leadership role."
The board also received a positive update about CMA membership totals. Dr. David Jones, chair of the Advisory Committee on Benefits, Services and Membership, said membership was 7% ahead of last year's totals by the end of August and is expected to surpass easily last year's final total of 44 205 members.
He noted that there has been a marked increase in the number of student members. As well, a mailing to US-based physicians who trained or practised in Canada has more than doubled the number of physicians in the CMA's "member-at-large" category.