IMG_2047For me, the holidays are about family, friends and being grateful for the many blessings as Canadians we’re able to enjoy. This Christmas, as I think about what I am particularly thankful for, I can’t help but reflect on the many opportunities health care has afforded me. As a young doctor starting at St. Michael’s Hospital in 1982, I was full of hope – an optimism that I could make a difference for my patients, their families and for the advancement of medicine.

When I consider this will be my last holiday message as a hospital president and CEO, I still hold that hopeful enthusiasm about the future. The change we have seen in health care in the last decade has been outstanding. Medical advances that hold disease at bay; new technology and devices that help treat more patients as clinicians perform procedures in a minimally invasive way; investments in education and research that are building momentum to better care and new discoveries; and for our patients, an engagement approach that puts them in the circle of care with clinicians, managing and directing their health needs together. All these and more should give us all hope.

And I also have hope for our new network. Built on the foundation of some incredibly capable and determined women, the legacy of the Sisters of St. Joseph is an ever-present reminder of the important mission we all need to keep alive – a mission of treating people at their most vulnerable time, during disadvantage and often despair, and showing them that everyone is worthy of compassion, human dignity and access to quality health care.

As we approach this holiday season, I hope you will be thankful for the blessings in your life and for the opportunity we all have to continue the Sisters’ legacy.

– Robert Howard, Interim President and CEO