Chair's Message
This will be an exciting year for the Department of Family Medicine. A planning committee has been established and is working to oversee the Ian McWhinney lecture series starting this year with the inaugural lecture on September 23, 2015.
This lecture series is being established to honour the legacy of the first Professor of Family Medicine and Chair of our department, Dr. Ian McWhinney. Dr. McWhinney introduced the idea that Family Medicine was a distinct discipline within medicine. He championed the concept of patient centeredness and helped to create this as a major theme for research in our department.
Major themes of his writings included the centrality of the doctor/patient relationship, the subjective experience of illness, the meaning of illness and suffering, the importance of physician self-knowledge, and the theoretical foundations of family medicine among others.
For the lecture we are hoping to attract a major speaker of the national and/or international reputation whose work is reflective of the principles and values articulated by McWhinney, and we are hoping that the lecture can be published in a major medical journal such as the Canadian Family Physician.
In addition to the lecture we hope to have the speaker involved in other activities that allow interaction with graduate students, medical students, residents and family doctors.
This should be a major event for the Department of Family Medicine, for Schulich Medical school and for Western University. I encourage you to Mark the date in your calendars and plan to join us for the inaugural Ian McWhinney lecture on September 23, 2015.
As always, I welcome your feedback at Stephen.wetmore@schulich.uwo.ca.
