reports from council
Council also heard a presentation from Dr . David Juurlink , a medical toxicologist from the Hospital for Sick Children , and an expert on drug safety . Please read about Dr . Juurlink ’ s presentation on page 21 .
Committee . To ensure that the College is able to consider all opioid issues within a quality assurance focus , Council directed that the role of the Methadone Committee be transitioned to a specialty panel of the Quality Assurance Committee . This change in governance structure provides the opportunity to better align assessments of methadone prescribers with the general approach of peer assessments for physicians . Changes to the current process will be phased in over time and communicated to prescribers and stakeholders prior to implementation . The College will also continue to identify , investigate and monitor high-risk opioid prescribing . This work is underscored with the awareness that while investigations may identify instances of risk of harm to patients of continued prescribing , there is also a very real risk of harm to patients of discontinuing prescribing . In order to balance the risks in these situations , the goal of investigations is to support continued prescribing when it is appropriate and informed by guidelines . We have more about the strategy on pages 9 and 22 .
Accepting New Patients and Ending the Physician-Patient Relationship Policies Council approved two updated policies that provide guidance on related issues of practice management – one on the acceptance of new patients into a practice , and the other detailing the considerations to be taken into account before deciding to end a physicianpatient relationship . The Accepting New Patients policy sets out physicians ’ professional and legal obligations when accepting new patients , and emphasizes that physicians must accept new patients in a fair and professional manner .
The revised Ending the Physician-Patient Relationship policy retains much of the key content and many of the central principles of the former policy , but it has been substantively updated to further emphasize physicians ’ obligation to act in the best interest of their patients , and to provide more explicit guidance with respect to when it may or may not be appropriate to end the physician-patient relationship .
We have articles about both policies in this issue .
Compensation Committee The Compensation Committee has been eliminated as a standing committee of Council . The Executive Committee will be assuming the tasks previously performed by the prior Compensation Committee in reviewing Registrar performance and compensation . MD photo : claudia hung
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Dialogue Issue 2 , 2017