Dr. Elizabeth Muggah, a family physician in the Faculty of Medicine Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa, has been appointed president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) on a five-year executive term.
Dr. Muggah, who will represent the province’s 15,000-plus family physicians, is stepping into the role at a time when COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses in health care, including the disparity in how family doctors were impacted by the pandemic across the province.
“The pandemic has laid bare many pre-existing gaps in our health system (and) family doctors play such a critical role in making the whole system work,” says Dr. Muggah. “Why haven’t our hospitals been overrun during the pandemic? A big part of this is the hard work of family doctors in the community to get patients the care they need so they don’t end up in emergency departments.”
As its newly minted president, Dr. Muggah is looking forward to working with the OCFP to move the province toward a model in which all family physicians have access to team-based care.
“Every family physician should have access to an interconnected system with an interdisciplinary team to help them with their most complex patients,” says Dr. Muggah, who as Assistant Dean of the Faculty Wellness Program takes professional health care worker’s health very seriously.
“I’m eager to explore how we can bring the increasing burnout issue front and centre, and how we can support organizations in being an environment that promotes the health and well-being of providers,” says Dr. Muggah, who boasts years of research into health system reform plus a master’s degree in Public Health from Harvard University.
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