“There’s a definite frustration, I would say, about Quebec healthcare in particular. But that is also something I’m optimistic about. There are two things that I would say patients hate the most about our system. The first is wait times while waiting to see a doctor, and then the second is wait times to actually see specialists or get imaging done, et cetera.

The third thing, there’s a lot of comments about bedside manner as well. So what I would say to those people is that be patient, hold tight. I’ve noticed that there’s kind of a divide between the old guard and the new set of not just family physicians, but physicians coming into the profession as well that have a very different attitude and very much like technology, believe in efficiency, were taught it more in school as well.

Our attitude towards patients as customer service I think is getting better. And as these kind of older clinics are closing down, the ones where you still see the paper files in, you will see a lot more clinics like mine, where we’re paperless and we’re even trying to move forward in terms of getting rid of fax machines and all these kind of old things, and to really accommodate the new generation of patients with a new generation of doctors.

I already have patients using Skype to talk to medical professionals. I have so many patients that ask me, am I gonna be able to come into your office with my iWatch and just touch your screen and you’ll know everything that’s going on? And it’s exciting to have patients engaged like that in their healthcare, which kind of inspires us as physicians to want to integrate that kind of stuff in our practice. Because not only does it make more fun for us, more pleasurable for our patients, but it does improve healthcare in the long run. So although for any Quebecer’s watching who might be a bit déçu, as they would say about our current state of healthcare, I would definitely be optimistic about the future.”