Physicians, Humane Caring, and Family Caregivers
May 14, 2013
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Dr. Brian Hodges, a psychiatrist, is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto and Vice President Education at the University Health Network, among other appointments. He leads the www.theamsphoenix.ca, The AMS Phoenix Project: A Call to Caring. He shares his personal story and explains the Phoenix Project. He discusses the medical profession’s view of caring and how this could be changed by proposals from the Phoenix Project. He describes the role of family caregivers in the new world of caring as envisioned by the Phoenix Project. He discusses the role of family caregivers caring for family members with serious mental illnesses, and the obstacles he foresees to their being admitted to the circle of care, from which they are now often excluded. He identifies the things that he wants to do and see done to help family caregivers care for their family members with serious illnesses, and shares his message for family caregivers.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
