4 minute read
From bedside to boardroom
Physicians accept leadership positions to enact positive change for Sask. MDs
Pictured above: Dr. PJ Vertue
By Girard Hengen
After a particularly challenging day, Dr. Lyle Williams wonders why he ever agreed to serve as a chief of staff with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).
Dr. Williams, a family physician from Unity, had been senior medical officer (SMO) for the former Heartland Health Region since 2014 after serving as deputy SMO. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was getting into.
“There are definitely days when you ask yourself, ‘Why? Is this really the direction that I want to go?’ ” Dr. Williams told the SMA. “But there are days when it is rewarding to see improvement in the system.”
Dr. Williams is passionate about rural medicine – as evidenced by his now 12-year tenure in Unity – and improving emergency care. From his position of chief of staff, northwest, for the SHA, he has a role in managing change.
“Through a lot of work in Heartland, we were able to improve the ER sites. A lot of my push in the future will be trying to ensure that our rural ER sites provide as good care as possible,” he said. “I definitely found that being able to enact those changes is very rewarding, as well as seeing the improvement that we’ve had at those sites.” Dr. Williams was born in South Africa, raised in Botswana, and returned to South Africa for medical training. While in school he dabbled in student leadership, but it wasn’t until he was established in Unity that he became a physician leader within the former Heartland region. He initially said “no” when approached by co-chief of staff, Dr. Melissa McGee, to look at sharing the role for the SHA’s northwest region. The fact that duties were shared was a benefit.
“There was also an opportunity to be a part of something new and different and to be able to watch it develop,” he said. “That was one of the big pulls to apply for the role.”
Dr. PJ Vertue didn’t go looking for an administrative position with the SHA, but he’s glad it found him.
Dr. Vertue, an emergency room physician in Moose Jaw for 12 years, was head of emergency services for two years, in 2011-13, under the former administrative structure. In that time, he came to understand the importance of physicians assuming leadership positions, if not for personal satisfaction, then for the good of the profession as a whole.
“From previous experience, I noticed from the low number of physicians who take leadership positions that if you don’t, things will be done for you and perhaps not in a way you’d like,” he said.
Dr. Vertue, who received his medical degree in South Africa, is certified in emergency medicine by the Canadian College of Family Physicians. He wasn’t seeking new opportunities when he was approached to take on the job as area chief of staff, southwest, for the SHA, which is one-day FTE.
“I recognized the need for it and so I agreed to slip into this role,” he said. The change has been made easier because he shares the workload – which he says amounts to more than one day FTE – with two other Saskatchewan physicians, Dr. Hein de Klerk, the senior chief of staff, and Dr. Ivo Radevski, a third chief of staff for the southwest area.
Dr. Vertue says the opportunity was too great to pass up.
“The longer I’ve been working in medicine in general I just see so many of the issues that we’re dealing with is because of the lack of physician leadership in the medical community,” he said. Having physicians within the leadership structure of the SHA is invaluable, he said.
“For the first time in a long time the average physician on the street probably has a little bit more faith in what we’re doing just because they know there’s at least a physician sitting at the table, and they’re not just rubber-stamping decisions.” Drs. Vertue and Williams both believe physicians need to learn leadership skills early on – while they are still students in medical school.
“I wish there was more emphasis on this sort of stuff at the college level, at the university level, where we need to make sure physicians are equipped to lead from the get-go, not have to do a course when a position is thrust upon them after the fact,” Dr. Vertue said.
Dr. Williams notes in the recent past physicians were not regarded as an integral part of the health-care system. They were cast as separate and apart, but that is changing.
“As physicians are more embedded in multiple layers throughout the health-care system, and bringing about changes, we will have better patient outcomes,” said Dr. Williams. “That, I think, will be not just what a physician would want to do as a career path, but is something that every physician should have as an integral part of their training – that they can enact change at whatever layer they might find themselves at, whether that is the CEO of the whole SHA or working in a clinic with three or four physicians. Leadership comes about through all of those layers.”◆
Dr. Lyle Williams
