Family Doctors Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults
October 18, 2011
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Dr Tony Calland is the Chairman of the British Medical Association's Medical Ethics Committee. He discusses his background as a physician, his interest in medical ethics and the work of his Committee. He explains who vulnerable adults typically are, what makes them vulnerable, and the things that they are vulnerable to. He talks about safeguarding vulnerable adults, what’s really meant by safeguarding, and what the basics of safeguarding for vulnerable adults really are. He explains what’s meant by abuse and neglect and how safeguarding works in such situations. He describes family physicians’ roles in safeguarding vulnerable adults: how they get involved, what the problems are that they get involved with and how they help especially when vulnerable adults get into trouble with the law. He discusses situations in which vulnerable adults or the police may be in danger. He shares his message to family caregivers caring for a vulnerable adult about the role of the family physician.
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.
