Happy 2024!
Again, it’s been some time since our last post, but that doesn’t mean that Family Medicine innovations are not progressing in Nanaimo! 😉
I was happy to attend a new community Family Practice clinic opening ceremony in Nanaimo yesterday (congratulations DR and SM… you will Thrive!)! <3 It’s nice to see the tide of community Family Practice beginning to move in a better direction.
As we write this, there is work going on behind the scenes to establish a Family Practice Teaching Ward at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH). Thank you TZ, KM, DL and new team member, DC. For too long Family Medicine has been receding in these important areas of Health and Care.
https://blueskyfamilymedicine.family.blog/2022/10/31/family-medicine-belongs-in-hospital/
So stay tuned.
With Health Care in crisis, there are over 36,000 Nanaimo-ites without a Family Doctor (or primary care provider)… with the increased demands (I am asked daily about taking on new patients who have no care – sorry we are so full), limited resources and the associated moral injury… this has caused more healthcare workers than ever to report some form of burnout or fatigue these days. 😦
A great way to prevent this and build joyful compassionate care is with Balint groups!
We have been doing them for years… they are hard to quit because they are so much fun!
Michael Roberts says it well:
“A Balint group is a purposeful, regular meeting among family physicians (can you say Decadent Dessert Night?), with a trained facilitator or leader, to allow discussion of any topic that occupies a physician’s mind outside of his or her usual clinical encounters. A Balint group can have many goals. The presenter might realize a more helpful way of viewing and interacting with the patient; the group might learn to view the case from multiple perspectives (clinician, patient, relationship). The goal is to improve physicians’ abilities to actively process and deliver relationship-centred care through a deeper understanding of how they are touched by the emotional content of caring for certain patients.”
https://www.cfp.ca/content/cfp/58/3/245.full.pdf
I Balint (thanks young doc circle!)… maybe you should too? 😉
Peace to the planet!
Blue Sky Family Medicine 