(Jacob Serebrin/ Montreal Gazette) — In an open letter published on Friday, the president of of the Quebec Medical Association said he’s now embarrassed to tell people he’s a doctor.
“Recently, I find myself, in taxis, at restaurants, no longer longer daring to say that I am a doctor. When asked the question, I hear my self responding that I work in the health sector,” Dr. Hugo Viens wrote. “Yet, when I became a doctor, I was proud to join this group of professionals. I knew we enjoyed a special status. A status earned though the long years of study I had just completed, but also by what I brought to society as a doctor.”
Viens said doctors need to be more involved in improving the health-care system and he worries the associations that represent doctors in their negotiations with the government have become too focused on winning bigger salaries.
“We’ve not been doing what we should have been doing,” he said in an interview. “We should work at curing the system, helping the system get better and not just keep using the system to make our money.” (…)