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A HEALTHY DOSE OF HONESTY Dr. Eileen de Villa P’19, ’21 is Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health and a member of Crescent School’s Board of Governors.
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FAMILY SUPPORT Aidan de Villa-Choi ’19 just completed his first year at the University of Waterloo in geomatics. Nicholas de Villa-Choi ’21 recently finished Grade 11 at Crescent. They had a front-row view as their mother, Dr. Eileen de Villa, led Toronto’s pandemic response.
We are used to Mom being busy, but this situation is certainly nothing we have ever experienced before. There has never been anything to this extent in her work. During the height of the crisis, sometimes one of us would call her when we were going to bed at midnight and say, “Hopefully your day’s wrapping up,” and she’d say, “I’ve actually got three more hours on my plate.” You could hear how tired she was, but she was always positive and upbeat. We just try to support her to the best of our ability, knowing that it must be really
hard for her to go through all of this. We are definitely confident that she can handle things. She’s incredibly capable. We definitely have some worry when we hear how tired she is and that she’s working sometimes more than 18 hours a day. We worry about how she will maintain that pace over a long period of time. But she always seems to be taking it in stride. When we talk to her or see her on TV or in clips on Twitter, she has an air of confidence that makes you feel like everything is going to be all right.
A
s Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, I am in a doctor-patient relationship with three million people. My job is to deliver the best possible care for them, which begins with having the best available evidence. The challenge with COVID-19 is that the science is not established. We don’t have the same knowledge as with other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS. And asymptomatic infections are a relatively new phenomenon we are just beginning to understand. Given the uncertainties and risks associated with COVID-19, ongoing communication has been essential. People need to hear something several times before it makes sense for them, so I have used all available channels to communicate as often as possible.
“At the end of the day, I’m serving the public. This is a doctor-patient relationship. I’m going to tell it like it is. I’m also going to make sure my patients know I care about them.” – Dr. Eileen de Villa P’19, ’21
I’m accountable to my three million patients to offer the best possible assessment, diagnosis and treatment plan. I want everyone to know what to expect, including the potential benefits and downsides. That’s where honesty is crucial. I always tell it like it is. I don’t hide. I view being completely honest as a form of care. People need to know that I care about them. And they need me to be upfront with them that it’s going to be hard. I can’t count the number of times I said in my press briefings, “This is difficult. It’s challenging.”
18 Past & Present / Summer 2020
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