MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Colleagues:
I
David Rouselle,
College President
Physicians who
use an electronic
medical record
must have a level of
comfort and fluency
with their system
recently attended the an-
nual meeting of the Canadian
Medical Association and the
issue of physician burnout was
a topic of discussion among the doc-
tors in attendance.
Physician stress and burnout are
matters that the College recognizes
as serious issues. We cannot care for
our patients unless we pay atten-
tion to our own mental and physi-
cal health. The College has a long
history of working with the OMA’s
Physician Health Program to ensure
that physicians get the care they
need when they feel overwhelmed by
the challenges presented to them.
I was not surprised to hear that
the necessity of having to deal with
stricter regulatory requirements was
often raised as a cause of burnout.
The regulatory environment that I
began working in several decades
ago is much different than the one
that we are in today. There is an
increased requirement for trans-
parency – much of what used to
happen behind the College’s closed
doors is now posted on the register,
for example. The world has changed
and the College has had to reflect
society’s evolving expectations.
The article on page 21 about
the College of Nurses of Ontario’s
new model of governance makes
the point that greater government
scrutiny means that regulators must
continue to enhance transparency,
address both real and perceived
conflicts of interest and achieve
outcomes that are defensible in the
public interest. And if colleges are
not seen to be proactive, they run
the very real risk that government
will step in and impose solutions.
The College cannot and will not
abrogate its regulatory duty but I do
think we can enhance our sensitivity
to the issue of physician burnout.
Certainly, it is in the best interests
of patients that this problem is ad-
dressed.
Please stay tuned for more on
this important issue.
******
I like gadgets and technology but
I will come clean and admit at the
outset that I am no Mark Zucker-
berg. So when I did decide to go to
an electronic medical record, I knew
I was in for a steep learning curve.
And that, my friends, would be the
very polite way to describe the next
year as I struggled to make my new
EMR do what I wanted it to do.
Three years later, and I am pleased
to have made the decision to leave
paper records behind me. But I
know that, even now, there are fea-
ISSUE 3, 2017 DIALOGUE
5