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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Canadian Medical Association (CMA) president Dr. Anna Reid visited her old stomping grounds last weekend, while in town for the Northwest Territories Medical Association's annual meeting.

Stanton Territorial Hospital emergency room physician Dr. Anna Reid, who has been living in Ottawa since last summer while serving as president of the Canadian Medical Association, returned to town for the Northwest Territories Medical Association's annual meeting last Friday. - Thandiwe Vela/NNSL photo

As the country's top doctor walked through Stanton Territorial Hospital last Friday, colleagues stopped her in the halls, surprised to see Reid, who has lived in Ottawa since last summer while serving a one-year term as the first NWT president of the national physicians association.

The transition from the Yellowknife hospital's emergency room to the spotlight championing nation-wide health care reform has not been an easy one for Reid, who told Yellowknifer it's been "intense."

"It's a very demanding job in terms of the time requirements and the travel requirements, being away from home a lot," she said. "I'm living in Ottawa for the year and I'm even gone from Ottawa half the time. I miss my patients. I miss the direct patient care because that's why I went into medicine."

While Reid has been uprooted from her home and her "true love" of patient care, she does not regret her foray into policy -- which has given her the opportunity to go up against the "big machine" that is the current health care system, with a non-stop schedule of speaking engagements, meetings with political groups, medical associations, and patient groups through various health care forums across the country.

"You sort of get to a point in your career where you realize that a lot of the problems with health and health outcomes are something that has to be dealt with on a systemic level, so that's why I decided to get involved with medical policy," she said. "It's a big machine to change."

Reid, who started her career as a rural family physician, has been outspoken about health equity and access for those in smaller, remote communities, and other issues specific to health care in the NWT.

As CMA president, she is also furthering the association's message about health care transformation, which is based on the three main principles of better care for the individual patient, better health for the population as a whole, and better value, or, "how do we get more bang for the buck out of what we're spending on health care," Reid said.

While she is critical of the federal government's "hands-off" approach to health care, she said there is progress being made toward health care transformation through more cooperation between provinces and territories.

Improved electronic health records are also addressing access problems for patients across the country, she added.

"The NWT has been a leader on this nationally. Dr. Ewan Affleck who works here, has actually been quite a visionary," she said, praising the territory's doctors.

"There's a huge level of engagement from our physician staff here in a way that's quite exciting compared to other communities I've worked in," she said.

Reid will return to Stanton hospital in August, when she will be succeeded by the next president of the Canadian Medical Association.

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