Letter to Graduates
To the graduating family medicine class:
It has been an honor and a privilege being your Chief Resident (Urban) for the past year. It has been incredibly rewarding being an advocate for our class and acting as a champion for the resident voice. Over the past two years, we have gained knowledge, experience, relationship and professional networks, as well as a strong foundation for our independent practice. For those of us who are graduating, this is a time of growth and immense change, as we transition from learners to staff physicians in the community.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have been upended. Many of us have had to self-quarantine and to sacrifice time with family and loved ones. Many of us have had our electives and core rotations canceled, have been redeployed to other specialties and have foregone planned vacations. Many of us have faced dangerous situations in the workplace, dealing with PPE shortages and unclear policies. Through all of this, family medicine residents have been courageous and selfless and have continued to serve on the frontlines despite adversity. Our generation of family physicians will have more empathy, more flexibility and greater ability to manage volatile and unpredictable situations. Our experiences will enable us to develop both personally and professionally and be the strong patient advocates, teachers and healthcare leaders that the future needs.
As our time in the program draws to a close, I reflect on the amazing experiences I’ve had at Western. From working with a diverse, vulnerable patient population at Victoria Family Medical Centre to doing rotations in rural communities in Southwestern Ontario, to attending events such as the Resident Retreat to applying to stay for another year here in London. I am grateful for the mistakes I’ve made, the challenges I’ve faced and the lessons I’ve learned. I am thankful for the lasting connections I’ve made at this school including friends who feel like family to my passionate mentors who have guided me along the way.
I hope that your experience here at Western University has been as enriching and rewarding as mine. That you will take with you Ian McWhinney’s Nine Principles of family medicine and treat all patients with respect and dignity, take a whole-person approach to care, mobilize your community resources and networks, practice care in different healthcare settings and continue to promote the importance of preventative care.
It is not easy to be a family physician in our generation. We are managing a population that is older, has more medical comorbidities and are more complex with diminishing community resources. We are asked to play many roles in the community and to provide our opinion on diverse topics. I firmly believe that our training here at Western has prepared us for these challenges and we will rise to the occasion. We are ready to graduate and fill the shoes of the prolific family physicians before us. I want to wish this class my sincerest congratulations. I look forward to working with you in the future!
Sincerely,
Ada Gu
