Welcome to “What are you reading?” where department members share publications, articles and books that support their ongoing development as family medicine practitioners and lifelong learners.
This first installment is offered by Alan Katz:
I am a slow reader. This means that I try to be selective in what I choose to read. Over the years I have tried to find a way to read what is important to support my clinical practice, my teaching, my mentorship activities, my administrative duties and my research. I get the tables of contents from a variety of journals via email, and a quick review of them often leads to my opening one or more of the articles for further exploration. This often ends with the abstract, but also leads so some useful nuggets or some interesting information, that may or may not be useful at some time. I find both valuable.
I also make a point of paging through my hard copies of the CMAJ and the CFP. These are, after all, the journals closest to my professional life. It was the May edition of the CFP that stimulated these thoughts. Our discipline is evolving and all too often we are too caught up in our day to day challenges to take a step back and reflect on the things that are influencing that evolution. We are acutely aware of the dramatic shift towards virtual care that the pandemic has brought about, or the system reform in Winnipeg that has sidelined many urban family doctors from hospital care. We tend to spend less time reflecting on what it means to be a generalist or how we each respond to the standardization in care that we have been challenged with by EBM. There are two commentaries in the May CFP that I believe are worth reading. They deal with these two important influences on family practice.
I hope many of you find the time to read these and find them as stimulating as I did. I think this type of reading can help us reflect on the bigger picture issues that sustain us through the less rewarding days.
– Alan Katz