new sma president sees access to timely health care, tackling racism as priorities
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by: amanda short
dr. eben strydom sees a lot of positives things about working in a rural community. there’s variety when you’re covering so many areas of medicine and he appreciates knowing all his patients.
he also likes that he’s making care accessible.
“it’s also the impact that we have, to prevent people having to travel for services that can be provided locally,” said strydom, a melfort family physician.
“that’s what keeps me here.”
strydom was elected as president of the saskatchewan medical association earlier this month.
the starphoenix spoke with strydom about the challenges health-care providers have faced during the pandemic and how he hopes those will shape the sma’s future advocacy work.
q: what does it mean to be elected?
it’s a great honour and a big responsibility to be elected president. it gives me an opportunity to advocate for all doctors of saskatchewan regarding the current issues as well as the topics that are close to heart.
top of mind now is the pandemic — to try and do what we can to reduce the impact that it has, the absolute disruption that it caused. this gives me an opportunity to ask people to try and get their vaccinations. it’s extremely important, and it’s our way out to get out of this.
q: what lessons have come from the pandemic?
i think we already knew that medicine is a team sport. we heavily depend on each other all over the system — primary care, to secondary care, to tertiary care, and the support services as well.
but we also learned that those dynamics can change quickly, and we need to be able to adapt and adjust. we also learned that the other work that we do needs to continue, despite the disruptions from covid.
we learned lots about the virus and how it works. that changed our processes and our understanding. and we learned that simple things still work, like wearing a mask, washing hands, keeping a social distance. i think that’s all really, really important for the way forward.
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q: where do you hope the province will be at the end of your term?
i hope we will be in a much better place with regards to the pandemic. and that everybody will be immunized so that we can get back to the important stuff and we can provide access to the care that has lagged behind because of the pandemic.
i also hope that we will be in a position where primary care access is improved, that we are closer to getting every resident to have access to comprehensive primary care and we’re able to improve the flow of information.
q: aside from covid-19, what are your priorities?
family and rural medicine. everybody should have access to timely health care. and so to work with all the stakeholders to improve access and to improve the system, to help people to get access and appropriate care as close to home as possible.
the other thing is dealing with systemic racism and the impact that has on the system as a whole. we’ve learned about the impact of this more and more over the last few years. and it’s been recognized now that it is a problem, it’s a difficult problem that has persisted for decades.
with the recent agm, the sma has a committee now that is looking at that. i think discussions like this help all involved to understand things better, to be able to internalize and reflect and then help us to use the privilege that we have responsibly in addressing this issue.
this interview has been edited and condensed.
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