Q&A: DR. MELANIE HENRY MEET DFCM’S INAUGURAL VICE-CHAIR, COMMUNITY AND PARTNERSHIPS

Dr. Melanie Henry had never considered becoming a doctor until her high school English teacher suggested it. “I remember turning to him and saying, ‘I can’t do that,’” recalls Dr. Henry, who, despite having parents who worked in health care (her mother is a nurse and her father, a respiratory therapist) hadn’t thought about a career in medicine. Dr. Henry, who was interested in health policy, health systems and health equity during undergraduate studies, ended up proving her teacher right. She is the first Vice-Chair of Community and Partnerships at the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto. The creation of this leadership role is one of the priorities of DFCM’s strategic plan. The aim is to build and steward partnerships with community organizations and groups, public health units, and other health system and social service associations—especially those serving equity-deserving communities—to promote better health outcomes.

It is a role for which Dr. Henry is well suited. She is a family physician on the Health For All Family Health Team, an interprofessional primary care clinic that is the site of the Markham Family Medicine Teaching Unit. In addition to caring for her patients and supervising family medicine resi- dents, Dr. Henry is also the organization’s board chair and interim physician lead, working to advance its mandate of increasing access to family health teams, particularly for people who do not have a regular primary care provider. As the site’s global health director, Dr. Henry oversees the global health curriculum which, for example, teaches staff, faculty and trainees about social determinants of health, and provides Indigenous cultural safety training for residents. She also partners with York Region, Public Health and community paramedics to provide primary care to people staying at emergency housing shelters in the York Region.

Having grown up in Newmarket, Dr. Henry knew that when she completed her fellowship in global health and vulnerable populations, she wanted to work in the York Region to develop services for people in her community. “A lot of the people who’d done the fellowship previously had gone back to the city [to work downtown]. I recognized that the community I grew up in didn’t really have any of those services. It didn’t have any sort of physician looking after either the homeless population or people with addiction or mental health issues. There wasn’t a service like this up here like there was in Toronto. I wanted stay in the area and see what we could develop up here,” she says.

Outside of work, Dr. Henry is busy raising two children—a daughter, aged nine years and a son, aged five years—and playing on various sports teams. Here, she sits down with Alisa Kim of DFCM Communications to talk about what drew her to the Vice-Chair role, what she hopes to accomplish in the short-term and the pitfalls of multitasking.

Why did you want to be a family doctor?

Stories are my big thing. I really think there’s a huge privilege in being able to understand where people are coming from. One of the lovely things about family medicine is that you’re there at various intersections, when people are going through good things and bad things, and you’re able to walk with them through those parts of their health care journey.

One of the major reasons I chose family medicine is I felt like I could have some impact on some of the social determinants of health that affect people’s health care in a way I that couldn’t address in another specialty.

What drew you to the role of DFCM Vice-Chair, Community and Partnerships?

I think there are a lot of parallels between my choice of family medicine and choosing the Vice-Chair role. I think the stories piece continues. It’s growth from individual stories and understanding where individuals are coming from, to understanding where whole communities are coming from.

I had a really lovely experience working with the Black Health Vaccine Initiative and the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario working with my own community doing work to try and increase vaccine awareness in the region. That was hugely impactful for me because I was impacting my own community, but also understanding as a physician in this role, I’ll be able to impact the story and the way in which those communities are seen and able to access care, which is really important to me.

What is your vision for the role?

It’s in development, but I think the strategic plan is a guidepost for what this position is going to look like and how we’re going to work to embed some of the work we’re doing at the DFCM in the community. I want to see that collaboration happen.

Part of my vision is to understand the communities the DFCM impacts—what they need from us and how best we can work with them to be able to support the things they need. That’s one of the things I learned in the work that I did with the Black Health Vaccine Initiative: it’s so important to listen to the communities and really understand what it is they need and want. And it’s appreciated when you do that. It’s going to be enacting the DFCM strategic plan while really trying to understand how the strategic plan can help the communities based on what they are telling us they need.

What are some of the immediate priorities?

One will be to look into community health centre partnerships. There are lots of community health centres in the GTA and we don’t have a lot of great connections with them. We’re going to work on those connections. That’s certainly a priority.

We’ll be working with the equity, diversity and inclusion specialist to get the Black Health Advisory Table up and running—something Dr. Onye Nnorom [DFCM’s inaugural

EDI Lead] had recommended. That’s another priority. And to continue some of that work she started in her role as the EDI Lead. Those are two things I will get going on pretty quickly. I am looking forward to meeting with faculty and staff of the DFCM, and building strong community partnerships.

How will you measure success?

I think right now it will be about sorting out what responsibilities, according to the strategic plan, we’re looking at and using some of the benchmarks from the plan to measure any success we’re able to achieve.

Measuring success in a new role is challenging because we’re going to be creating new things and projects. Creation of new projects is important in and of themselves because we need to start something to be able to measure it, but I think ultimately, we’re looking for community engagement in the work that we’re doing and having those community organizations we’ll be partnering with feeling like they are part of the DFCM and the work we’re doing.

If you hadn’t gone into medicine, what would you have done?

I don’t know! [Laughs.] In my undergrad program, I minored in bio and chem thinking I’d eventually write the MCAT or go into the medical field. Both of my parents are in health care. My mom is a nurse and my dad is an RT [respiratory therapist]. Because of that, I knew I wanted to work in health care.

The more I learned about the system and health inequality, the more I wanted to be able to impact that. I’m not sure if there’s a profession I would have gone into otherwise. I al- ways had a sense as I narrowed down what I wanted to do, that impacting health equity and the social determinants of health in the community at large was something I wanted to do. I think I’m in the right profession!

What do you like to do outside of work?

I love coaching soccer. My daughter is a soccer player and I have coached her soccer team since she was three. I also play soccer and have been on the same women’s team for the last almost 20 years. It is a great community for me. My son has just started to get interested in basketball and so he inspired me to join a league this year. We’re testing my knees and seeing if that’s something I can continue to do. I like being outside, and have also started skiing with my family. When I’m trying to relax, I play piano. I’m no performer, but it’s something that I do just for me.

What is a typical day for you?

I’d say most days I start work when I roll out of bed at around 6 a.m. I think one of the things that helps me be successful is my ability to multitask. I have to be careful about that because sometimes it distracts me from things that are important like family time, but I typically am trying to answer emails as I’m getting ready for the day and organizing my kids in the morning. I try and get into the office by 8:30 a.m. and work until 4 to 5 p.m. I do the kids’ activities in the evening and then start again when they go to bed. I try to protect certain times of my day, and try to keep weekends for my family as much as possible. I’m so lucky to have an amazing partner who supports the work that I do. It really helps to make things run smoothly.