Lisa Richardson MD

I was talking to a senior physician and policy analyst recently about how we really need to support the next gen of health policy experts who are also practitioners—people who can integrate the often disparate worlds of policy and practice in the way colleagues like @IrfanDhalla @drandrewb @docdanielle @AlikaMD are doing.

Woman Wearing Beaded Amautik
by Eva Talooki Aliktiluk
Image via wag.ca

Closing health gaps for Indigenous peoples in Canada requires an understanding of their root causes i.e of the historic and ongoing impacts of colonization. With this lens, interventions to close the gaps can focus on self-determination and health transformation agreements.

It takes only an hour of rounding on the General Internal Medicine wards to realize that for physicians to provide high-quality health care, we must understand the structural/social determinants of health in addition to knowing the latest expert guidelines for our areas of practice.

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Shuvinai Ashoona
Image via vanartgallery.bc.ca