Christina Spencer's blog

Stay tuned to the PAC website because we'll soon post the conference session notes. There will also be a comments section to open the discussion online.

Health care expert Sholom Glouberman got a taste of hospital care from the patient’s side of the scalpel—and now he’s trying to reform how medicine works in Canada.

If you’ve had any experience with hospital care in North America, you’ve likely noticed that the time and wishes of patients are not high priorities for medical professionals. Sholom Glouberman found the same thing when he went under the knife for what was supposed to be a relatively minor operation on his colon in 2005. The operation led to an infection that was at first misdiagnosed, and through a series of abrupt nursing changes, curt doctors, miscommunications (and outright failures to communicate) he was—six months later—left healthy and recovering, but feeling completely disgusted by the way he was treated.

Erella Ganon is a Toronto-based artist and blogger who shares her medical challenges of living with a benign tumour through drawing.

"A friend called me with details about her new scary medical challenges. I was surprised by how little interest she seemed to have in the nature of the illness, the possible outcomes and what she can affect. 'Um, I don't know...'"

Carol Ross Williamson offers a thoughtful review of Sholom Glouberman's new book 'My Operation' for The Record, a Waterloo Region newspaper.

My Operation: A Health Insider Becomes a Patient
by Sholom Glouberman
(Self-published, 183 pages, $19.95 softcover)

Most of us will be a patient in our health care system at some time in our lives, so it’s imperative we know how to make the best of the experience. This book by Canadian health policy analyst Sholom Glouberman will help us to do just that.

Below is a moving letter sent by a health care worker. If you have a story to share, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Dear Mr. Glouberman,

Having read the recent article where you were interviewed (Globe & Mail February 10, 2011), I was rather interested in your dialogue. I am a nurse in a busy acute care facility, and as a front-line health care worker I'm always interested in any new input that perhaps can assist me in some way in my day-to-day interactions with both patients and their families. I was especially interested in your comments regarding how patient-provider relationships are fleeting and where investing in customer service appears not to be a priority. I can assure you that on many occasions both myself
and other care providers have questioned the same, wondering how, perhaps we could of served our patients better than seeing them fall through the cracks.

At our inaugural conference more than 100 people representing all parts of the health care system and from across much of Canada came together to consider ways of improving the patient experience.

The 27 discussions were animated and rich – full of good ideas leavened by strong debate and discussion. The resulting reports will be posted on this web site shortly for comment and emailed to all participants for their responses. We are looking at the reports and are beginning an analysis that we will make available in the next days. There is so much material that can help us in our thinking about ways forward.

Click here to listen to the Feb 15th Metro Morning broadcast with Matt Galloway!

There is a comments section, so please let others know what you think.

The Patients’ Association of Canada, which officially launches this week, has been established to provide a national voice for patients in public discussions about the country's health-care system and how it can be improved.

President Sholom Glouberman, a longtime health care consultant and philosopher-in-residence at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto, outlines his experiences as a patient, how that led to the formation of the Patients’ Association and what the group hopes to achieve. The following question-and-answer interview has been edited and condensed.

Q. Describe your experience with the health-care system as outlined in your book "My Operation."