CDA Essentials 2018 • Volume 5 • Issue 5

18 | 2018 | Issue 5 N ews and E vents University of Toronto Award of Distinction Dr. James Leake The 2018 University of Toronto Award of Distinction was given to Dr. James Leake in recognition of his work as a passionate advocate for public health research in Canada. Celebrating excellence in the oral health community, the Award of Distinction recognizes those who have made an ongoing and outstanding contribution to the U of T faculty of dentistry, the dental profession, and society as a whole. “Thank you Dean Haas, and thank you to the faculty for presenting me with this year’s Award of Distinction. The best part of the Award comes with this opportunity to address the graduating class. I’m grateful for this honour. The occasion takes me back to when I and my classmates were in this same position, 52 years ago. We were addressed by Dr. D. Carleton Williams, soon to become President of The University of Western Ontario. Dr. Williams’ counsel to my classwas to remember thatwewerebecomingprofessionals. Not professionals, as in sports millionaires trying to get the most money for ourselves, but professionals as members of a group which professes, that is publicly declared, they will benefit others ahead of their own interests. Has my generation, and those who followed us, demon- strated benefiting others? Not entirely in the minds of the public and some observers within the profession. A 2007 article in the NYT states ‘…even as so many patients go untreated, business is booming for most dentists...’ (Berensen, Oct 11, 2007). Canadian pollsters have found that, while the majority of Canadians have a positive view of dentists, many see dentists less as health care provid- ers and more as business people. In a 2001 article in JADA (Christensen, Vol. 132, August 2001) a writer laments the attitudes of some of his colleagues who: have a commercial, self-promotion orientation; offer or provide excessive care; discourage patients who can’t pay high fees; or provide care only when it is convenient to them. One semi-humorous illustration of the latter occurred a few years ago just before Christmas. I was visiting a renowned colleague, Professor Murray Thompson in New Zealand and he invited me to come along to the meeting of the Otago Dental Society. After his speech, they opened their business meeting to decide who was going to be on call for Christmas week emergencies. Well, one said he did it last year, another said he had done it for 2-3 years in a row before that, and another said he would love to but he was going to be away. Ultimately, the meeting settled on those who were not in attendance, and whom everybody agreed should take their turn. So, the Executive was instructed to write the laggards a strong letter telling them they should step up. For me and in the words of Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again, as barely a month before I had spoken to the Kingston Dental Society and the same issue, the same disclaimers and the exact same solution was invoked. While this serves as a humorous illustration of the coincidence of human foibles - 14 time zones and one hemisphere distant, it also illustrates the mismatch between the professed values and the actions of those who don’t join their colleagues in taking responsibility for sharing in learning and the provision of care. I would hold that our stated professional values are based on respect: respect for our patients; respect for our colleagues; respect for our community; and even respect for ourselves and our families. I challenge you to do better than we have, and to demonstrate that respect, more clearly. Let me elaborate. Respect for our patients means dealing honestly with their wishes and your assessment of their needs. Tell the truth about the bounds of your diagnosis, the limits of the benefits and the potential of the harms that attend the options for their treatment. Those options include doing nothing, as well as interventions that may not be financially remunerative to you. Be honest, develop trust. Respect for our colleagues, in my mind, means taking your turn at assuming responsibility for serving clients who can’t pay, for those who are on welfare, for the emergency on-call list, for organizing the association golf day, for covering for a sick colleague, and for attending those in institutions. Be a generous leader. Showing respect for your community recognizes that, despite the contributions of your family and your own hard work that got you here today, you understand and are grateful that the community provided much more. You were likely born in a publicly funded hospital and had your childhood diseases prevented or treated by publicly funded health care providers; most of you were educated in publicly funded elementary and secondary schools; most live in an environment that is clean and healthy, maintained by public funds raised by our taxes; and all arrived here on publicly built roads or transportation systems. The university fees you and I paid were still much less than it cost society to educate us. That being said, there is still much to do to make our communities healthier, and I have not seen many dentists contributing at that level. I urge you Photo Credit: David Lai Dr. Leake shared the transcript of his acceptance speech, which he delivered at the Licensing & Awards ceremony in June.