Status of Women committee  That's a great question. Thank you for that. I think part of it is to separate normal from disease. Having raised two girls, and continuing to raise—I guess you never stop—two girls through this whole period.... One is 20 and one is 18. The problem is that we have these classifi

Status of Women committee  Thank you for that. Those are good points. One thing with the 18-month wait is that we have the psychiatrist as the holy grail. You get to see a psychiatrist and are suffering till you get there, but the psychiatrist doesn't have all the answers. The idea is to have more of a te

Status of Women committee  I do believe it starts with community. It's a community thing, for sure.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. I'm stepping out of my expertise. I'm not a lawyer, but, absolutely. If we're encouraging.... If it's hate speech, we have legislation. Maybe some of this needs to be expanded to cover platforms, so that we keep up with the technology.

Status of Women committee  I believe so. I don't have the answer for it, but I do believe it exacerbates the anxiety. It exacerbates, sometimes, the loneliness and isolation. For example, when some of us were growing up.... If I did something embarrassing in class, seven or eight people who saw it might la

Status of Women committee  The brain studies are the same. We did right-handed men because that was easier for brain studies.

Status of Women committee  I think it goes back to the whole holistic society thing—well-being, social supports, the connectedness or disconnectedness of a society. From a treatment perspective, when we have a lack of access to care, a lot of times it's social things, but there are kids who become depresse

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much for that. First of all, I completely agree with my colleagues that medicine isn't always the answer, but sometimes it is. If we are going to medicate, we need to be careful to make sure that we are translating studies correctly. Years ago, we used to think t

Status of Women committee  Again, I mentioned earlier the advantages of team-based care. Back in the day—I know Diane has practised for a long time as well and I know her as a colleague—when somebody was hospitalized years ago, they actually got treatment in the hospital. Social workers and occupational th

Status of Women committee  Our colleagues have alluded to this. As a physician, I was a generalist. I was a family physician with the military. Then I became a super specialized guy; I became the trauma guy. Later in my career, I became much more of a generalist. I agree with what my colleagues were sayi

Status of Women committee  I think those are incredibly difficult questions as well. We have colleagues who are working 60- to 70-hour weeks, working until 10 o'clock with a patient in crisis. Most of us who are in practice don't turn our phones off, which we probably should. We're trying to balance the wo

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much for the question. It's a huge question. My colleague just mentioned what is not the answer—that is, to continue to prescribe medication without psychotherapy and without counselling, and to just give these kids some stimulants and antidepressants. That's prob

Status of Women committee  My last point, really, is on research specifically looking at women and young girls. Quite often, I've sat at the table myself. Sometimes it's complicated because of biological differences between men and women. We have often stuck to right-handed males who are relatively healthy

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. In my opening comments, I would like to share my thoughts on several topics, including mood and anxiety difficulties in girls and young women, the challenges of being a young woman today and a little about substance use, as well as my concerns regarding