Read the full March eNews and President’s Message.
“It takes team, grit, determination, and perseverance. If you trust in your people, and equally importantly, they trust you, amazing things can happen.” Darby Allen, Former Fire Chief, Fort McMurray, Alberta (Keynote, 63rd Annual Scientific Assembly)
As in emergency response, leadership in family medicine is not for the faint of heart. Primary care is being asked to lead and contribute through changing clinical delivery and practice, taking on more coordination and collaboration roles, reaching out to problem solve, and seek resources to achieve better results.
If you want to gain skills as a leader for your practice, your Primary Care Network, your Zone, or for the province, you will have to seek them out. You will find a great line up of speakers and leaders at ACFP’s second annual LeadFM Conference in Calgary on April 20 and 21, 2018. We hope that you can join us to start your leadership journey or to continue to network and collect leadership tools and resources that will support you and your team in your day to day delivery of family medicine.
But let us not forget, “it is about the little things.” I think what Darby Allen said about leadership also holds true for me. When working with my teams at the University of Alberta, Sylvan Family Health Centre, or the ACFP, I have to be purposeful about my actions to show appreciation for all of the work that everyone does that contributes to the delivery of medical student and resident education, patient care or good governance. I trust my team members to play their role to the best of their abilities and to do what they were trained for.
This year’s 63rd Annual Scientific Assembly was a true success and example of what can be achieved when you have an engaged team of physician leaders. Featuring inspiring and thought-provoking keynotes, like the one delivered by Darby Allen, to workshops focused on using integration and continuity to lead system transformation, our team of committee members and staff came together with grit and determination to deliver what one delegate said was “The best ASA I have ever attended!”
In this way we are all successful and “amazing things can happen.” We all can do our part to show leadership through appreciation. And in building strong leaders and strong teams, we can continue to produce exemplary events—our Annual Scientific Assembly being no exception.