“Dear Family Physicians…” a thank you message from colleagues

In response to what they were hearing from their family physician colleagues dealing with the ongoing stressors of the pandemic, two research faculty members in the Department of Family Medicine, Meredith Vanstone and Lawrence Grierson, created a video to acknowledge these challenges.

“Throughout the pandemic, we have been in awe of the amazing work done by the primary care teams we work with. As time went on, we started hearing our family physician colleagues express their feelings distress, exhaustion and burnout,” said Vanstone. “We made this video as a way to say, “we see you” and “we appreciate you” to our colleagues.”

Titled “Dear Family Physician”, the video highlights some of the challenges experienced by family physicians throughout the pandemic and draws on scientific evidence to explain and normalize these feelings.

To create the video, Vanstone and Grierson worked with two aspiring family physicians in their final year of medical school. Lanyi Lin and Aakashdeep Khehra reviewed the literature, developed the script, created all of the visuals, and sewed it all together. Muhammadhasan Nasser provided additional support.

“While this started as a personal message to close colleagues, we recognize that the feelings they expressed in those meetings are likely held by many clinicians working in primary care and beyond,” said Grierson.