Canadian Medical Association President Elect

Public

CMA PRESIDENT ELECT

15 JANUARY 2015 

Good Morning, I hope you are well. We are all aware of the politics of medicine in Canada and I believe the CMA could be crucial to the future of the profession for several reasons I won't elaborate here.

As you know it is BC's turn to select the next President of the CMA, and DoBC sent a message this morning asking members to vote on line for the candidate of their choice between 16 January - 23 February 2015.

I suggest you consider Granger Avery from the North of Vancouver Island whose outstanding achievements I describe below.

I am convinced the future of our profession depends on a strong voice nationwide to support the ancient ethic that physicians involved in patient care must put their patients interests above all else and that this voice will ultimately come from the CMA.

All three candidates are past presidents of the BCMA/DoBC and well qualified for the position; two being recent are well known to voters but the third, Dr Granger Avery BCMA President in 1997-8 is perhaps less so. However I respectfully suggest we seriously consider Granger for this key position at the CMA which I believe will be crucial to the future of our profession.

Since his zealous presidency when many vital measures were introduced Granger has been extraordinarily active and successful in professional matters and remains so to this day thus gaining wide experience of the problems within the profession. To be engaged to this extent for so long by his fellow physicians at CMA and BCMA/DoBC, speaks volumes for their trust and for his wisdom, energy, and enduring achievements.

Very active both provincially and nationally, he is credited as Chair of the Committee on Aboriginal Health with ensuring admissions to medical school for qualified First Nations aspirants in BC, a recommendation he took to CMA and later adopted across the land. He initiated the Council on Health Policy and Economics within the BCMA, currently the backbone of DoBC work, and started the novel idea of Wait Lists for medical procedures, which became a nationwide process - with important successes for creating for physicians to work.

Through his idea of the Reduced Activity Days, he successfully led the profession's struggle against "proration" the government of the day having attempted to reduce physicians fees the more patients they attended, thus potentially harming patients and physicians alike. At the same time, he championed the On-Call payments that our rural colleagues had started, and is now available to all providing hospital coverage in BC and across Canada.

He has chaired the Annual Business meeting of the BCMA/DoBC for the last five years, and more recently, he was instrumental in creating the Chair of Rural Medicine at UBC. He has worked tirelessly to make the renewed Provincial Privileging process meaningful for both patients and physicians.

Besides being awarded the Silver Medal of Service, the highest award of DoBC, and the Don Rix Gold medal for Physician Leadership, I have attached the announcement of Granger receiving the HONORARY MEDICAL ALUMNUS AWARD from the Fall Edition of the "UBC MEDICINE" magazine.

There are several other important and on going achievements which may be seen on his website, as well as his full CV http://grangeraverycma.ca

A minor personal note; Granger and I graduated from the same medical school in London, England but he some 14 years after I did. I first met him in the Yukon where as President of BCMA he was invited to their AGM, which I had attended for many years. I was fascinated by his stories of practice in Port McNeill and, gritting my teeth, I accepted his challenge to do a weeks locum there I learned a lot in this remote place (aboriginal ante natal clinics by helicopter, tough for a kidney doc. whose patients rarely conceive) and got an idea of the challenges faced by rural practitioners with which Granger dealt with ease, while as Clinical Professor of Family Practice he mentored medical students, residents and other health care students and personally funded their accommodation when need be.

I have just received this from a GP to whom I sent the above letter this morning

"....I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Granger. I have watched his career over the years. In the 80's Dr... and I visited his practice as part of the COMPA process. Outstanding is the only way to describe Granger's work. He should be a candidate for the Order of Canada. Did you know he is an avid collector of Haida art and lent several of his pieces to the VAG for a big show over a decade ago?...."

I think the CMA will play a key role in the future of our profession including the support of Clinical Faculty and I urge you to consider voting for Granger as our next President.

If you agree, please suggest your colleagues do likewise; copy them with this letter if you wish: I believe it is important we make all our colleagues aware of the issues, including residents, interns and students.

This is hard for me as I have a lot of respect for the other two candidates, but I believe this choice will the better serve us all.

Best wishes for 2015,

Angus Rae

Clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine UBC
Founder Member and PP of UCFA/SCF