Ottawa in review

It's been a while since my last post but I've been busy busy busy. Feb 15th-19th I went to Ottawa to attend a leadership and lobbying conference put on by the Canadian Federation of medical students. It turned out to be quite interesting and I was thrilled to squeeze in a good visit with my friends living there. Unfortunately I missed out on the last day of Winterlude due to the conference but, having been to it before, I don't feel too badly. A little bit about the conference? There were 60 med students from across Canada in attendance, in various years in their programs. Saturday I had the chance to socialize with my friends but Sunday was a full day from 11am-8pm, and Monday was up on Parliament Hill doing actual lobbying and going to Question Period. The conference day was good, with presentations by:

• Cdn Medical Association's director of gov't relations re the current political environment/priorities,
• Keith Martin (MD & MP from Victoria/Esquimalt, BC) on how to lobby effectively,
• Carolyn Bennett (MD & MP from Toronto) re life as a parliamentarian, and
• two journalism profs from Carleton that are formerly of the Globe & Mail and the CBC on media do's and don'ts to effectively lobby/position your cause publicly.

It was really neat to learn more about the political scene in Ottawa. The organization putting on the conference had an issue for us to lobby on Monday regarding gov't student loan repayment during residency (not an issue I feel particularly passionate about since I'm not eligible for this type of loan but a good topic to practice with nonetheless). So on Monday, we paired up with another medical student and were assigned politicians to meet with. I met with Penny Priddy, Denise Savoie and Jack Layton (via speakerphone) to make our pitch to them in a 15-20 minute meeting. They were all really great and supportive and it was much less stressful than I expected. Then later in the day we headed to question period and while raucus, it also wasn't as bad as I expected. Strange dynamics though. People presenting while others don't pay attention and some pretty juvenile cat calling. It was quite weird, however I had thought it was going to be horrible and it wasn't. This past weekend was our mid-term break, which is what they call having Friday and Monday off. :) However, I took full advantage and managed to squeeze in lots of fun (and a little work) with more visits with friends from Vic and Van, a little daytrip up-island and some relaxation time too. Back to the grindstone today. Tonight I had a meeting with our career management guy who's a Community Medicine doctor. While it was a mediocre meeting, he did give me a few people to follow up with to explore community medicine as a specialty a bit more. I have to say though that a 2 year family practice residency is pretty appealling at this point (vs 5 year residency of some other type). But who knows. Never say never. At this rate, I'll still be a student when I reach retirement age.