Skyvington on Medicare — Author of “This May Hurt A Bit”

One of the grumpiest politicians I ever knew said, “This is not a tea party.”

Often, medical politics is war. Opponents do not enter to fight fair.

I forget this all the time. Stephen Skyvington does not. He works to make opponents bleed. He published, This May Hurt A Bit: Reinventing Canada’s Health Care System with Dundurn Press in February.

I wrote this about it:

“One part memoir, two parts jeremiad, This May Hurt a Bit demands a discussion on healthcare. Skyvington pokes, prods, and provokes until he gets the debate Canadians need.”

Stephen kindly offered an interview. I do not agree with everything he says, but I admire his courage and insight. As a longtime pundit, organizer, and provocateur, I thought you might enjoy his comments.

Skyvington on Medicare

Q. Predict the future: In ten years…

A. As I say in the book, by 2030 we’ll either have bankrupted the country, have turned every road into a toll road and every school into a private school, or we’ll have ended up with the very thing people (including myself and Dr. [Brian] Day) say they don’t want, namely, a U.S.-style, two-tier health care system.

As former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty once said, “There’ll come a time when the only ministry we can afford is the ministry of health, and we still won’t be able to afford the ministry of health.”

Q. What is the #1 problem with Canada’s health care system? Continue reading “Skyvington on Medicare — Author of “This May Hurt A Bit””

How to Leave Medicine & Travel the World

Dr. Matt Poyner left medicine to travel the world. You could too.

How would you like to leave medicine, right now?

Close your clinic. Work your last shift. Say goodbye and maybe never go back?

Do you have enough money? Could you get your finances in order?

How would you manage an identity change?

Meet Dr. Matt Poyner

Matt is 42 and free. He and his wife, Lindsay, sold everything and took their four boys on a trip around the world for a year.

Dr. Poyner graduated from Mac and completed family med at UBC, plus a year in EM. He practiced emergency medicine for 13 years. Then he walked away.

Matt might return to medicine. He suspects probably not but keeps his options open.

Aside from admiring his courage, I wanted to know how Matt and Lindsay could do it.

How could they leave medicine and give up being a medical family?

Did Matt win a lottery?

Did he work two jobs?

I sent Matt a list of probing questions: everything from finances to burnout and fear of the CPSO. He answered them all.

Could you or I be the next Dr. Matt Poyner?

How to Leave Medicine and Travel

Continue reading “How to Leave Medicine & Travel the World”

Getting out of Medicine

Here’s a physician who’s living what many doctors daydream about. He didn’t just get out of medicine.

Read Matt’s post below to inspire your own dreams.

Enjoy!

Getting out of Medicine

I have a friend who, like me, is an emergency physician. He’s also a racecar driver – and a damn good one. He’s good not just because he’s got talent on the track but because he spends hundreds of hours working on and understanding his car.

For my friend, racing has been an antidote to the strain of medicine. But it’s not enough. He’s been burning out.

At some point it occured to me that my friend and his car are not so different. They function in high-pressure, high-stakes situations, asked to perform optimally. Mistakes are not tolerated. Performance is the priority.

Medicine and racing have a lot in common.

The difference is in the maintenance. For example, my friend knows how important it is to change the oil in his car. He knows that if he doesn’t there is a very predictable series of events that will ensue.

First, as the oil degrades, its ability to cool the engine decreases and the risk of overheating increases. Second, as more debris accumulates in the oil, it thickens, decreasing the efficiency of the engine. Finally, as metal on metal friction increases, engine damage occurs. Ultimately, the heat generated can essentially weld the pistons and cylinders together.

Catastrophic failure.

As I worried about my friend, it struck me that many physicians I know are like vehicles in various stages of neglect. They are not functioning as well as they could. Grinding on. Damaged.

Physicians commit suicide three times more often than the population at large. Something about modern medicine is toxic to our own well-being. There is an epidemic of catastrophic failure.

Why do so many of us take better care of our cars than ourselves? I think our system is inherently designed this way.

Continue reading “Getting out of Medicine”