Wilfrid Nelson, who was instrumental in introducing the use of anesthesia during surgery, became the first elected mayor of Montreal. Sir Charles Tupper, the Scots-trained physician who became Canada's sixth prime minister and the CMA's first president, promoted the need for a strong public education system. In Saul's view, physicians will not be able to influence public policy and contribute to the country's political evolution until medicine rediscovers its historic public role. This means doctors will have to follow the lead of Charles Tupper and other antecedents, and speak out publicly on issues like home care and the need to oppose two-tier medicine. But this is difficult for a profession that has been fragmented by specialization.
Specialists see their job as defeating death rather than preserving health.
It's a top-down concept, all about control. He is convinced that physicians have become prisoners of their own profession and are unable to integrate their view of the public good with their view of themselves as experts and members of the upper middle class. This means that their contributions are often misunderstood in public debates because doctors frequently appear to be unconscious of the effects of their actions. When the issue of health care report cards was raised during the CMA's last annual meeting, Saul considered it as an interesting notion that should be explored. You can't discover it when you're aged 45 and in mid-career.