Paging Dr. Hanson
Published Saturday November 22nd, 2008
Fredericton physician to become president of the World Medical Association
Fredericton dermatologist Dr. Dana Hanson will spend the next few years circling the globe as president of the World Medical Association.
But he won’t be able to take advantage of that position to try to recruit more doctors for the capital.
“The Canadian Medical Association and the World Medical Association are strongly against actively recruiting physicians from countries that can least afford to lose them,” he said.
Hanson, a former president of the Canadian association, became the first Canadian to be elected president of the world association during a recent conference in Seoul, South Korea.
He’s currently president-elect. His term as president is in 2009-10 and then he will serve one year as past-president.
“It is going to be a major challenge,” Hanson said. “I hope to be able to make some contribution.”
The world association, which represents eight million physicians around the globe, was set up in 1947 primarily to deal with medical ethics in reaction to the medical atrocities in Nazi Germany.
Recruiting doctors from poor countries is considered poaching and medically unethical, even to try to correct shortages in countries such as Canada.
Ironically, while he can’t actively recruit new doctors for Fredericton, he’s the only dermatologist in the capital and there’s already a long waiting list to see him.
Hanson said it was a tough decision to take the post when there’s a shortage of dermatologists in his home province.
And it will mean changes for his patients and the local health-care community.
“I will decrease (my practice) substantially,” said Hanson. “I will not leave it entirely.”
In making the choice, he said, he had to balance the impact on his practice and his patients with the good he could do at the World Medical Association.
“My patients are important to me,” he said. “Life gets greyer as you get older. Nothing is black and white.”
He will continue to see patients in Fredericton when he’s in the city.
Hanson has also arranged to have emergency cases seen by other dermatologists in Moncton and Saint John. He will be sending a warning note to all the family physicians he works with.
Hanson won’t draw a salary from the global association, but his expenses are paid.
While the Canadian and world associations have a policy against doctor poaching, they also believe in freedom of movement, said Hanson.
History is full of ethical failures when countries close their door to legitimate refugees, he said.
“We don’t have a closed-door policy, but we could not lure someone away,” he said. “But if they ask me about my practice, I am truthful.”
While he can’t recruit new doctors, Hanson said he will be promoting Fredericton when he’s in places such as Geneva, Switzerland — the headquarters of the World Medical Association — and in Iceland and Tel-Aviv, Israel, where major conferences are scheduled.
“I never have any hesitation bringing New Brunswick into the conversation,” he said. “We do tell people where New Brunswick is.”
The unethical medical practices of Nazi Germany might seem like ancient history, Hanson said, but the association is still fighting for medical ethics in today’s world.
One example of a modern medical ethical issue is when a brutal regime tortures a prisoner and then directs a doctor to heal them so they can be tortured again, he said.
“It is a dilemma we as Canadians thankfully don’t see,” said Hanson.
Another example is the practice in China of prisoners “donating” organs such as kidneys.
Hanson said the association took the position that no prisoner can give informed consent to donate an organ.
“We spoke out very strongly against that,” he said.
After a lot of discussion and support, the Chinese Medical Association, which is a member of the world association, also took a public stance against the practice, said Hanson.
That wasn’t easy for the doctors in China because that country has a totalitarian government, he said.
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