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9 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,D ecem ber 19,2019 insidehalton.com AIRE ONE MADNEss sAlEAIRE ONE MADNEss sAlE UPGRADE YOUR FURNACE FOR ONLY *Call for Details $1990$1990 *Starting1990Starting1990199019901990Starting199019901990from 10 Year Factory Warranty HiGH EFFiCiENCY FURNACE & CENTRAL AiR PACKAGE INCLUDES: • 95.5% High Efficiency Gas Furnace • High Efficiency Central Air R410A Refrigerant $3990$3990 *StartingFrom Over 120,000 satisfied custOmers 9 Locations to serve you better Heating & Cooling www.aireonewest.ca 95.5%EFF. 95.5%EFF. OR/mth$59OAC* RECEIvE UP tO $1,950 IN REbAtES* RECEIvE UP tO $1,ooo IN REbAtES* *Call for Details OAKVILLE 905-849-4998 1-888-827-2665 10 Year Factory Warranty FURNACE ClEANiNg spECiAl FURNACE DiAgNOsTiC spECiAl *Call for details l *Call for details $79$79 * *Call for details $49$49 * Pud bySteveNease As 2019 ends, I find my- self looking back, at the past year, at my family's achievements, and at my life's work, medicine, the profession to which I've de- voted my life. Family medicine is not just science - though the science is extraordinary. What medicine can do to help people live longer, live better, live smarter is noth- ing short of brilliant. But medicine is also an art. Summerside, P.E.I., 2006, population 14,500. My final year of medical school. I was working with a small town doc. "He's not just any doctor. He's my doctor." The patient, a woman suffering from chronic pain, added, "No one be- lieved me 'til him. He got me." Such trust, even though he couldn't cure her. That is what separates family medicine from every other specialty in medi- cine. You don't just manage acute, episodic or chronic diseases from head to toe. You become master at man- aging the undifferentiated illness. The illness that hasn't declared itself. The illness that doesn't fit the thousands of known pat- terns. The illness that, even when it has no name, causes suffering and disa- bility. Because at the end of the day, the person sitting across from you is your pa- tient. You are still with them when everyone else has signed off. You may not cure them, but you get them in a way nobody else does. Patients tell me things that they don't tell their best friends. Funny, sad, joyful things. I know their life stories when they are at their most vulnerable. The magic in family medicine is this doctor-pa- tient relationship. A rela- tionship born of knowing a patient through ups and downs, illness and health, year after year. Not just knowing the normal and abnormal of the human body as it navigates life and disease, but knowing that specific patient in their spe- cific context. This is called continuity of care. Research shows that having the same family doctor year after year heals. It decreases mortali- ty and improves health. In and of itself, continuity of care even blunts the impact of one entire chronic dis- ease. It's that powerful. We live in a Google-pow- ered, Uber-style world mov- ing at the speed of social media. For all our advanc- es, I worry when patients sacrifice continuity of care for convenience - when pa- tients go to the nearest walk-in clinic instead of their own family doc. Though retail care may in- crease use of the health- care system, it doesn't im- prove what's really impor- tant: Patient health. Nadia Alam is a Georgetown physician and past president of the Onta- rio Medical Association. Her columns also appears on www.medium.com/ @docschmadia. She can be reached at nadia. alam@oma.org. FAMILY MEDICINE IS NOT ONLY SCIENCE OPINION IT'S AN ART AS WELL, WRITES NADIA ALAM NADIA ALAM Column SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AT INSIDEHALTON.COM ANIMAL TALES This feathered friend was keeping an eye on the backyard of the photographer recently. If you have a recent high-rez photo of Oakville wildlife, send a jpeg along with the date and location the photo was taken to news editor Kevin Nagel at knagel@metroland.com. Ed Gadzala photo 1200 Speers Rd., Unit 12, Oakville, Ont. L6L 2X4 (905) 845 - 1408 | Fax (905) 845 - 5931 | ricky@rickywong.ca Ricky Wong CPA, CA, MBA, B. Eng Ricky WongRicky W DIAMONDDIDIDIDIDIAMAMAMAMAMONONONDIAMONDONDIAMONDONONONONONDDD DIAMONDDIDIDIDIDIAMAMAMAMAMONONONONONONONDDD Voted BestAccountant by Oakville Beaver ReadersVoted BestAccountant by Oakville Beaver ReadersV for 11 ConsecutiveYears For more information please check our website www.rickywong.ca •Accounting •Auditing • Taxation