Word from the President June 2023

This will be my last word to you as SOGC President, for those of you that attended the ACSC 2023 in Ottawa, you can stop reading as this is a summary of my final Presidential Address: A Year in Review and Thoughts about how to make the SOGC stronger.

The year goes by quickly but watch out for the speed bumps.

What do you need to do when you are the President?

The time you start and finish depends on your time zone but as any good surgeon knows, the earlier the better.
In reality, to do the job well you need FTE 0.40 as a minimum, usually spread over 3-4 days per week.
Listen, then listen more, then get ready to think and communicate on multiple levels.
The SOGC does not have a large disposable budget, we are not the Royal College, CMPA, or HIROC.
Our not-for-profit ’status has driven the SOGC need for CHANGE / organizational change.
Follow the SOGC Strategic Plan 2021-2025 / know the SOGC core business as the SOGC is a business, not a club.
Understand that our multidisciplinary world is both a strength and a weakness for the SOGC as it depends on the people, process, or project you are on.
You as President / Board Chair are held responsible by the obstetric-gynaecologic and affiliate SOGC membership, you can’t get everyone to love you, but hopefully you are principled and make yourself understood.

The SOGC Board

Dedicated SOGC members with a fiduciary responsibility to the SOGC membership (members and affiliates); there were limited face-to-face meetings for 2022-2023, only one of six due the SOGC fiscal status post-COVID, this restriction did impact the ability of the Board to communicate more effectively, network, and help members get to know each other. The Board’s committees (Finance; Guideline Management Oversite; Governance; Nomination-Talent Acquisition; CEO Review; [Academic-Education – JOGC]) were being re-organized and some transitions were better managed than others. The human resources in the SOGC office were not available to provide all the necessary support and organization.

Representing the SOGC Board and Organization as President

September 2022: Quebec Regional Meeting: Vibrant and loud; people and industry were ‘wanting’; my Regional Presentation Health Policy Innovation: What could a Canadian Collaborative Public-Private Service Model look like?;
October 2022: RANZCOG Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Gold Coast AU, this is the College Model (membership, education, research, guidelines, certification, and re-certification) >95% of all obstetrics and gynaecologic providers in AU / NZ are members; my presentation, SOGC and Indigenous Health in Canada;
October: SOGC CEO represented the SOGC at the Mexican National Obstetrics and Gynecology Meeting;
December 2022: Ontario Regional Meeting; for medical education teachers UME/PGME an excellent collaborative participatory program was re-started; my regional presentation, Collaboration and Teamwork;
March 2023: West-Central Regional Meeting; a very vibrant menopause symposium with active presenter and attendee engagement; Canadian ERAS-SOGC Joint ERAS-Caesarean Delivery Guideline presentation was launched; Rural Surgical and Obstetrical Networks of Alberta (RSONA) was important communication for rural health care needs; my regional presentation, National Leadership in Canada’s Provincial Healthcare Crisis;
April 2023: Society for Rural Physician of Canada regarding the Joint Guideline for Rural Obstetrics;
May 2023: ACOG Baltimore and the Canadian Perinatal Research Meeting;
February to May 2023: the SOGC was involved in the search for a new CEO for Salus Global with strong collaborative interactions.

Now this brings us back to June 2023 and the ACSC Ottawa ON

Installation of our new SOGC President Dr Amanda Black (Ontario)

Symposium on Perinatal Loss focused on maternal mortality

All other ACSM events that make the SOGC the place and the society to be actively involved with.

I leave you with my final comments….

I have been a member of the SOGC since 1978 (45 years), leading the Genetics Committee from 1985 – 2016, and I consciously left my involvement at the higher SOGC levels until I had the time to do it properly.

It has been a privilege and an honor to serve as your President for this last year, so thank you.

The present presidential commitment is one year (after one-year of pre and post); there needs to be some discussion re a two-year period as it makes sense on the organizational level, but comes with a hard fiscal revision.

This is not the job that I wanted to do off the side of my desk, as I wanted the time to do it my way; most other SOGC Presidents have done this role while still very clinically active and they may give you a very different answer to mine.

There are still areas where the SOGC needs to ‘Plan, Do, Study, and Act’ as the change moves forward:

The SOGC Strategic Plan 2021-2025 (Table 1 below);
We need to appreciate our collective differences beyond geographic race-ethnicity-religion as the generational differences require thought and understanding for collaborative activity;
The question is, how do we get our new healthcare provider generations, who think, learn, communicate, interact, play, relax, advocate, support, and maybe love so very differently. They, minus the Boomers, must get together and make the ‘new healthcare world’ function. (Table 2 below)

Can old dogs learn new tricks? Well, I am sure that you have all heard of Artificial Intelligence and CHATGPT, so I asked it to give me a few words as I leave my role, here is what CHATGPT had to say….

“Being active, participating, and engaged in the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada has been invaluable. Through active participation, members have been able to collaborate on important initiatives, share best practices, and support one another in their work. Engagement has been the key in promoting our mission to advance the health of women and newborns through excellence in the practice of obstetrics and gynecology. By coming together as a unified voice, we have been able to make positive and lasting changes in the field. I am proud of what we have been able to achieve during my time as President.

With much appreciation, I bid you all adieu.”

Table 1:

My thoughts today are business focused with the comment “If you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities.”

The Strategic Plan 2021-2025 Healthy Women, Healthy Professionals, Excellent Care

SOGC Strategic Plan Priority	Action
*Vibrant- Resilient SOGC*	Requires the governance / board / committee changes. Requires the financial internal and external change-process. Requires clear core business activity CME/Guideline change.
*High quality healthcare* *healthy professionals* *+ Collaboration plus*	Continuing in team-based clinical, educational, wellness ways. Recognition / understanding reproductive/ obstetrics/gynaecologic roles.
*Partnering with women*	Hospital / clinic=OR / city / region / province / Canada / worldly SNEW.

Table 2: Generational Thinking

Generation	Dates	Factors that make a difference
*Boomers*	1945-1964	Baby Boomers grew up as television expanded dramatically, changing their lifestyles and connection to the world in fundamental ways.
*Generation X*	1965-1980	Generation X grew up as the computer revolution was taking hold.
*Millennial*	1981-1996	Millennials came of age during the internet explosion.
*Generation Z* *‘Zoomers’*	1996-2012	All of the above technology has been part of their lives from the start with the iPhone launched in 2007.
*Generation Alpha*	2012-	Now, they are 10 years old and they are my grandchildren; they are on-tract to be the most transformative generation.

All the best,

Dr. R. Douglas Wilson, MD, MSc, SOGC President 2022-2023