Writing this book has been an exercise in humility. People who know much more about each of the issues I raise have been wonderfully generous with their time and advice. My hope is that I’ve done justice to the patients who inspired each Big Idea and the colleagues and experts who’ve hoisted me onto their shoulders for a view of the evidence. Anything I’ve done well here has been because of their help, and I take responsibility for my inevitable missteps.
It takes a village to write a book—or this one, at least. The remarkable physicians and staff of Women’s College Hospital deserve credit for their help with the project and for their patience with me as I was writing. This includes the extraordinary team in the Family Practice Health Centre, a group that always pushes to do better for our patients and for each other. My medical and interprofessional colleagues took care of my practice when I wasn’t there to do so and have provided me with a wonderful environment in which to grow and learn.
Our CEO, Marilyn Emery, has been a tremendous mentor and supporter of this project—and of me—from the beginning, as has the entire leadership team of the hospital. Kyla Pollack Behar, Melissa Aldham, and Chantale Bielak helped to push the project off the ground and Jennifer Lee, Jacob Ferguson, and Lindsay Reddeman were instrumental in landing it. Lili Shalev Shawn and her team saw that the project was as much a tool for sparking conversation as it was a book, and have put their tremendous skill and passion behind that conversation. Reva Seth also provided extremely valuable advice in that regard, as did Lindsay Mattick and Bob Ramsay. The team at WIHV—the WCH Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care—led by Sacha Bhatia and including Onil Bhattacharyya, Bailey Griffin, Noah Ivers, Jay Shaw, Asad Moten, Hayley Baranek, Ciara Pendrith, and many others, were an inspiration and a resource at many important moments.
I leaned very hard on a group of tremendous experts. Bill Kaplan encouraged me to write the book in the first place, before I thought it could or should be done, and he provided important strategic advice along the way. Many colleagues provided advice, references, or citations in their areas of expertise, including Gary Bloch, Onil Bhattacharya, Irfan Dhalla, Will Falk, Marc-André Gagnon, Joel Lexchin, Laura Pus, and Steven Shrybman. Others talked through tough concepts with me or advised me on structure or strategy: thank you Darrell Bricker, Tony Dean, Terry Fallis, Peter MacLeod, Dave Naylor, and Max Valiquette.
Colleagues provided stories from their own lives or the lives of their patients to illustrate important concepts, including Stacey Daub, Irfan Dhalla, Sarah Giles, Ilana Halperin, Noah Ivers, Carol Kitai, Nick Pimlott, Cara Tannenbaum, Valerie Taylor, Lynn Wilson, my wonderful mother-in-law Lenore Barrett, my brave and brilliant mother, Anita Shilton, and her sister Eliane Shilton. Many kind people did the hard work of editing one or more chapters, including Sacha Bhatia, Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, Michael Decter, Evelyn Forget, Rick Glazier, Darren Larsen, Michael Law, Wendy Levinson, Steve Morgan, Karen Palmer, Toni Pickard, Nick Pimlott, Hugh Segal, George Southey, Mark Stabile, and Dawn Woodward. A few had the courage to read, and provide comments on, the entire manuscript: Andreas Laupacis, Greg Marchildon, Asad Moten, Joshua Tepper, Karen Palmer, and my gifted and loving father, D’Arcy Martin. Each was generous with time, expertise, encouragement, and honest feedback.
An amazing group of medical trainees—students and residents—assisted with the research for the book. They include Liza Abraham, Manpreet Basuita, Anand Lakhani, Yuchen Li, Vivian Tam, and Henry Zhang. I feel tremendously optimistic that the future of our health care system is in such capable hands.
My friends and colleagues at Canadian Doctors for Medicare also pitched in with edits, assistance, advice, and moral support, especially Karen Palmer and Ryan Meili—who were both amazing as always—but also the executive, board, and staff. CDM is an extended family network across the country that reflects the very best of the medical profession, and it is within that family that I learned how to advocate for health. Of course, advocacy without a rigorous evidence base is of no use—which is why I’m also grateful to the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto, where I learned how to rigorously think about and analyze ideas about public policy.
After we first met, I dreamed that my editor, Diane Turbide, helped me bake the perfect cake. My deep gratitude goes to her for understanding me and my message, and making my efforts in the kitchen rise. The tremendous team at Penguin Canada has been a joy to work with. In particular, I’m grateful to freelance copyeditor Karen Alliston, and to Liz Lee, whose skills polished and improved the manuscript. My agent, Chris Bucci, has been an invaluable navigator in this new literary universe, and has become a friend.
To the many patients who inspired this book and continue to teach me how to be a better person and a better doctor, I am extremely grateful.
Living with someone on a mission is never easy. My parents, siblings, extended family, and close friends have been endlessly patient. They brain-stormed titles, read passages, gave me space to write, and distracted me when I needed it. Each has peeled me off the ceiling or scraped me off the floor at some point to bring me back to the purpose and to encourage me when I lost my nerve.
But no one can scrape you off the floor like the people you wake up with every morning. For that task, I choose my partner, Steven Barrett, and my daughter, Isa Martin, above all else and every time. For me, they make life better—now and forever.