Dr Larry Green delivers the Ian McWhinney Lecture

"Will people have personal physicians anymore?"

Ian McWhinney was a family doctor from the UK who moved to Canada in 1967 to establish the Department of Family Medicine at Western University in Ontario. Ian influenced the careers and the attitudes of family doctors in many parts of the world, and he was one of the pioneer leaders of the development of the academic basis of our professional discipline. Ian died in 2012 at the age of 85.

The Department of Family Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine in London, Ontario continues Dr McWhinney’s legacy in many ways, including hosting a periodic memorial lecture.

Dr Green is a family physician living in Denver, Colorado, USA. His career has focused on family practice and developing family medicine educational and research programs.

The current chaotic environments in which many family physicians are working sometimes seems to focus on organizational and financing arrangements that do not attend to the powerful effects of personal, longitudinal relationships between family doctors and their patients, frequently resulting in disruptions and soul and trust-draining arrangements for patients and doctors. This unstable and rapidly shifting environment inspired the focus and content of the 2017 McWhinney Lecture. This lecture was subsequently published by Canadian Family Physician (Green LA. Will people have personal physicians anymore? Can Fam Physician 2017;63:909-912.)

The item has been generously translated into Spanish by another of Dr McWhinney’s colleagues, Prof Julio Ceitlin, living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With the permission of Dr Ceitlin, Dr Green, and Canadian Family Physician, we are pleased to make this lecture available to WONCA members and our friends.

Photo of Julio Ceitlin with Ian Mc Whinney in 2004.

See CFP article: Will people have personal physicians anymore?
Traducción: ¿En el futuro la gente tendrá médicos personales?*