Practising Internal Medicine in an Age of Miracles

CSIM Members of Council M Ee ds si taogre’sf rMoems s a g e
Dr. Maria Bacchus
President
Western Region Representative | Calgary, AB
Dr. Benjamin Chen
President-Elect
Ontario Region Representative | Napanee, ON
Dr. Stephen Hwang
Practising Internal Medicine
in an Age of Miracles
Donald Farquhar MD SM
Secretary-Treasurer
2013 Co-chair, Annual Meeting Committee
Ontario Region Representative | Toronto, ON
About the Author
Donald Farquhar practises internal medicine and respirology at
St. Joseph’s and University Hospitals, in London, Ontario, and
teaches in the Schulich School of Medicine at the University of
Western Ontario. Correspondence may be directed to
[email protected].
Dr. Neil Gibson
Western Region Representative | St. Albert, AB
Dr. Patrick Bergin
Eastern Region Representative | Charlottetown, PEI
Dr. Nadine Lahoud
Quebec Region Representative | LaSalle, QC
Dr. Donald Echenberg
Chair, CPD Subcommittee
Quebec Region Representative
CMA Representative | Sherbrooke, QC
Dr. Bert Govig
Quebec Region Representative
Vice-President, Health Promotion Committee | Amos, QC
Dr. Tom Maniatis
Quebec Region Representative | Montreal, QC
Dr. William Coke
Ontario Region Representative | Toronto, ON
Dr. Ameen Patel
Ontario Region Representative | Hamilton, ON
Dr. Anne Marie PausJenssen
Western Region Representative | Saskatoon, SK
Dr. Amy Hendricks
Western Region Representative | Yellowknife, NT
Dr. David Simpson
Eastern Region Representative | Halifax, NS
Dr. Pearl Behl
M
ary Chapin Carpenter has long been one of my favourite singer-songwriters,
probably because she is about my age and shares many of my sensibilities.
“Songwriting is what I do,” Carpenter has written. “[It’s] how I make sense of things,
[and] it’s how I seek connection and make my way through the world.”
Lately I have been listening to The Age of Miracles, the album that Chapin Carpenter
released in 2010, three years to the day after her hospitalization for life-threatening
pulmonary embolism. Reflecting on her illness, Chapin Carpenter remarked, “It was
the most terrifying experience. The health crisis itself was enough to paralyse you, and
the subsequent depression that followed was so difficult. They wave goodbye to you at
the hospital, and they don’t tell you – or they didn’t tell me – ‘now be aware that the
next few months [are] going to be really tough, and it’s not just because you don’t feel
well.’ I was completely unprepared for it.”
While the despondency that Carpenter experienced in the wake of her
hospitalization is reflected in some of the songs that she included on The Age of Miracles,
so too is a tentative sense of buoyancy and hope. The title track concludes as follows:
Resident Representative | Markham, ON
Other CSIM Positions
Dr. Gary Victor
Vice-President, Membership Affairs | Kelowna, BC
We think we’re just standing still,
One day we’ll get up that hill.
In the age of miracles,
There’s one on the way.
Dr. Bill Ghali
Vice-President, Research and Awards Committee
Calgary, AB
Dr. Jim Nishikawa
Vice-President, Education Committee
Representative on the RCPSC Specialty Committee
in Internal Medicine | Ottawa, ON
Dr. Don Farquhar
CJGIM Editor-in-Chief | London, ON
Dr. Brian Wong
2013 Co-chair, Annual Meeting Committee | Toronto, ON
116
Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2012
In our practice and teaching of internal medicine in the 21st century, we are faced with
no shortage of seemingly miraculous technologies to use in the service of our patients’
and students’ needs. How William Osler would have marvelled at the “space age”
simulation techniques described in Irene Ma and colleagues’ article in this edition of
the journal!
It is only through the ongoing medical research achievements of inquiring minds
that we and our patients can continue our uphill climb together. The article by Olivier
Desplantie, Kristian Filion, and Mark Eisenberg identifies a number of barriers
confronting bright young people who might otherwise pursue careers as clinicianscientists. Although the subjects of their survey research were fellows in cardiology, the
results are generalizable to all branches of internal medicine, and are cause for concern.
Yet, even in this age of medical and scientific miracles, it’s often our inherent biases
and stereotypical thinking that contribute most to our sense of “standing still.” Kirsten
Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine
Message from the Editor
Jewell’s insightful essay “Patient Profiling” reminds us of what
is most important – and timeless – in the practice of medicine:
seeking connection with those who come to us for care. As
Jewell points out, the labels and shorthand that we find so
useful in distilling and conveying our patients’ stories of illness
can distract us from the person behind the problem list.
Discovering that human being is what gives meaning to our
work, and helping him or her to heal is what frees us from
standing still.As the French philosopher and social activist
Simone Weil wrote, “The capacity to give one’s attention to a
sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle;
it is a miracle.
Having seen the end of another calendar year, miracles of
other sorts are on the minds of many: the birth of a baby, the
liberation of a people, the triumph of light over darkness. We
at CJGIM wish our readers peace and contentment, and renewal
in the year ahead!
CSIM Mission Statement
Mission Statement
Mission
The CSIM is a non-profit professional society that promotes the health and
well being of Canadian patients, their communities, and their health care
systems. We seek to foster leadership and excellence in the practice of General
Internal Medicine (GIM) through research, education, and advocacy for health
promotion and disease management.
La Société canadienne de médecine interne (SCMI) est une association
professionnelle sans but lucratif qui entend promouvoir la santé et le bien-être
des patients, des collectivités et des systèmes de santé canadiens. Elle souhaite
également promouvoir le leadership et l’excellence dans l’exercice de la
médecine interne générale en favorisant la recherche, l’éducation, la promotion
de la santé et la gestion des soins thérapeutiques.
Vision
We believe that General Internal Medicine in Canada plays a central role in the
training of current and future clinicians, in clinical research, in patient care, in
health promotion, and in health advocacy; and that it unites a body of
knowledge, values, and principles of care that lay the foundation for excellence
in the Canadian health care system.
Values
We embrace the ethical and professional standards that are common to all
healing professions, as well as the specific values of generalism, teamwork,
competency-based training, life-long learning, evidence-based medicine,
holism, and humane, patient-centered care.
Vision
La Société a l’intime conviction que la médecine interne générale occupe une
place centrale dans la formation des cliniciens aujourd’hui et à l’avenir, dans la
recherche clinique, dans la prestation des soins et des services de santé et dans
la promotion de la santé, et que la discipline se fonde sur un savoir, des valeurs
et des principes thérapeutiques essentiels à la poursuite de l’excellence dans le
système de santé canadien.
Valeurs
La Société fait sienne les normes éthiques et professionnelles communes aux
professions de la santé ainsi que les valeurs particulières du généralisme, du
travail d’équipe, de la formation axée sur les compétences, de l’éducation
permanente, de la médecine factuelle, de l’holisme et des soins et des services
de santé humains, centrés sur le patient.
CSIM Continuing Professional Development Mission Statement
Our ultimate goal is to go beyond the simple transmission of information. Our goal is to make a lasting impact on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of clinicians
and future clinicians; to narrow the theory to practice gap; to improve the health of our patients and of all Canadians.
Mission de la SCMI sur le plan du développement professionnel
continu
Notre but ultime déborde du cadre de la simple transmission d’information. Il consiste à produire un effet durable sur le savoir, les compétences et les attitudes
du médecin, à combler l’écart qui sépare la théorie de la pratique, à améliorer la santé de nos patients et de tous les Canadiens.
Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine
Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2012
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