introducing
Q&A
Can you talk more about your
Automatic External Defibrillator
campaign?
A. I started the campaign to get AEDs in
Toronto’s high schools and was part of Transport Canada’s submission to the International
Civil Aviation Organization to have AEDs on
passenger aircraft. Generally, I think putting
AEDs in locations where there is already a fire
extinguisher would be a good place for us to
start. Certainly, we should value lives more
than we value property.
to directly witness that, and an even
greater pleasure. The physicians and
nurses who work at Camp Oki return
to the ICU, the OR, cath lab and ward
with renewed enthusiasm for their clinical
work, because their view of their patients is
now able to extend beyond the front door
of the hospital.
What would you like to see the College
accomplish during the next year?
A. There are a number of current initiatives
related to transparency, sexual abuse, and
You have founded a summer camp
end-of-life care that are important to the
specifically for children with congenital
people of Ontario and work on them will
heart disease. Can you tell
continue through my term – I
us about the camp?
look forward to seeing them
through to their completion.
A. We started Camp Oki in
It’s
likely
that
In terms of new initiatives,
2004 because we heard from
our patients that they were not
we will identify given my engineering background and recent academic
trying summer camp because
factors
that
work, I’m looking forward
they, their parents, or the camp
predict against to the College beginning to
directors were too nervous to
analyze the full range of data
have a “cardiac kid” at camp.
complaints or
available to us in order to
One of my mentors in Boston
discipline
better understand the relationhad started a weekend camping
ships between member-specific
trip for his pacemaker patients,
factors and outcomes across the
and we emulated that model
whole spectrum of regulatory activity.
our first summer, but it’s grown rapidly. We
had almost 100 campers at camp for a week
What do you hope this data could mean
at the end of August.
to the practising physician?
I’m one of the camp doctors there every
A. It’s difficult to predict the outcome of this
summer – it’s inspiring to see the same
sort of analysis ahead of time, but other jurispatients you’ve taken care of, some of them
dictions have reported that certain aspects of
since infancy, out in the “real world” rather
a physician’s background, training or practice
than at the hospital. Some of my patients
may predict a higher risk of complaints or
start their lives under very uncertain condidiscipline. However, this is based on a narrow
tions; although intact survival is the norm
range of variables, and looking for only negain most forms of congenital heart disease,
tive outcomes. If we were to perform a broader
there are still some clinical challenges that
analysis, I think it’s likely that we will identify
make our patients’ journeys tenuous at
factors that predict against complaints or discitimes. Very few physicians working in acute
pline, and that this sort of information would
care settings get to see the results of their
be very helpful in guiding