June 2025 Edition — COA BulletinPresidential Messages

Olufemi Ayeni
President, 2024-2025
Canadian Orthopaedic Association

It has been the honour of a lifetime to serve as your 79th President. I am deeply grateful for the support and encouragement I have received from colleagues and friends within the orthopaedic community.

When I began this role a year ago, my focus was on engaging our membership, particularly early-career surgeons embarking on this incredible profession. I also called for collective action to address the challenges we face, with a mission to engage our membership across generations, subspecialties, and jurisdictions.

Over the past year, I had the privilege of participating as a speaker and guest at several provincial meetings, including the Association d’orthopédie du Québec, the Atlantic Provinces Orthopaedic Society, the Ontario Orthopaedic Association, the National Capital Orthopaedic Association, the British Columbia Orthopaedic Association, and the Manitoba Orthopaedic Society. At these meetings, I connected with colleagues to discuss pressing issues affecting their daily practice and relayed these concerns to our Board for action through our various Councils. I was particularly energized by my meetings with residents from programs across the country. They are eager to join us and ready to serve patients, and I assured them that the COA will be a key resource throughout their careers.

With the support of the exceptional COA staff, I engaged with industry partners and met with members of provincial and federal governments to advocate for the collective needs of our surgeons, trainees, and patients. While this work continues, I am confident that the COA’s message on access to care is gaining traction. I also had the privilege of working with the latest cohort in our Emerging Leaders Program, a COA-led initiative designed to enhance leadership skills in some of our most promising members.

One milestone I am especially proud to witness is the relaunch of the COA Bulletin, with this edition marking its first post-pandemic publication. Historically, the Bulletin has been the “go-to” resource connecting us within the unique landscape of Canadian orthopaedic surgery. It has always been highly regarded and complemented our educational offerings. The rebranded Bulletin will now be available online, providing educational content and updates on COA activities, ensuring it remains an invaluable resource for staying connected and engaged with the COA.

On a personal note, I would like to thank my home team—my wife, Theresa, and our four children, Elliott, Charlotte, Emilia, and Bennett. Their unwavering support has been instrumental throughout this leadership journey.

As my term comes to an end, I am proud to say that the strength of this organization lies in its engaged, dedicated, and talented members. I look forward to seeing you all in Vancouver for what promises to be an outstanding program.

Merci beaucoup et à bientôt

Dr. Sukhdeep Dulai
President-Elect
Canadian Orthopaedic Association

I recently participated in a panel of women surgeons, answering questions from an audience of medical students about a career in surgery. During the session, we were asked “How do you manage burnout?”. It prompted me to consider how our surgical community is perceived and how these perceptions relate to reality. There’s no doubt that burnout is a prevalent concern in the Canadian orthopaedic community. We must recognize it and do something about it. However, in doing so, we need to go beyond dealing with burnout to addressing the root causes, strengthening our professional community and creating working environments where we can thrive.

It’s vital that we take the next step and make a concerted effort to change the healthcare environment to one that promotes surgeon well-being. In order to do this, we need to shift the focus from the individual to system-driven causes and thereby shift the onus of responsibility for change. Even the “healthiest” surgeon is in trouble when the house in which they are standing is burning…. and our house is ablaze. The drivers for rising burnout rates in our profession are predominantly the external factors that are driving moral injury and creating an increasingly unmanageable strain on the orthopaedic surgeon, negatively impacting our ability to effectively provide optimal care for our patients. Individual resilience occurs in an environment that facilitates access to resources and when there is a willingness by those who control resources to provide what individuals need in a way that works for them (Michael Ungar PhD). From my experience and from my conversations with so many of you across the country, most of us do not feel supported in this way. It is critical we take an active role in leading the change to our healthcare environments because healthcare organizations that foster wellness in the workplace obtain better outcomes for patients.

This year, the COA formed a wellness-working group and developed a wellness statement incorporated into the new Strategic Plan. We have begun the work to facilitate optimization of care for orthopaedic patients by laying the groundwork for the development and implementation of initiatives which will inform advocacy and contribute to healthier working conditions and environments for orthopaedic surgeons across Canada. We will be heightening advocacy (in partnership with provincial associations and strategic partners), modelling within our own organization and, providing education centred on evidence-based principles. These strategies will target our membership and leadership, healthcare organizations and policymakers.

On the whole, surgeons have been increasingly sidelined as healthcare leadership has evolved and healthcare delivery has become an unstable political chess-piece. We need to strengthen our position as leaders, inform decision-makers and push for reform of policies that are detrimental to healthy practices and good patient care. This requires taking the conversation beyond discussion of the problem to providing feasible solutions and alternatives.

As we do this, I encourage you all to look for and share solutions you could implement in your own individual and group practices. Bring forward ideas for reform that we could implement within the COA or advocate for on a larger scale.

The rise of subspecialty societies has been phenomenal for advancing orthopaedics scientifically and educationally and has facilitated mentorship within subspecialties. However, by dividing us into smaller groups, this rise jeopardizes our ability to advocate as a collective national organization on issues that affect us all. It is essential we continue to build a united Orthopaedic community across Canada to give us a strong voice and platform for advocacy and change. This requires us all to participate in engagement initiatives that raise the profile of our specialty and our concerns. Take time in the next year to get involved in advocacy, especially on Canadian Orthopaedic Care Day (March 25, 2026), engage in COA hot-topic webinars, the COA Annual Meeting and meetings of your provincial associations, volunteer to serve on a COA or provincial association committee, mentor medical students and residents and take time to be inspired or at least have your thoughts provoked by Ortho Insider Podcast episodes.

I am excited to engage with you all as we work towards our goal. Collectively, we can and will make a difference, for ourselves, our families and our patients. Let’s change the narrative from “How do you deal with burnout?” to “How has Orthopaedics become a model for physician wellness and thereby advanced patient care in Canada?”

As always, I hope you take time to foster your own wellness and be kind to each other. For those of you feeling burned out or needing support, remember you are not alone on this journey and please reach out to someone around you or find professional resources available to doctors in your province at https://www.cma.ca/ physician-wellness-support-services.