Matthew Mukash, 72, a former grand chief of the Grand Council of Crees in Quebec, received treatment but remained in the ER hallway after being admitted to hospital—a common situation in Quebec’s overtaxed emergency rooms.
Montreal family physician Dr. Raymond Brière also refused to provide a referral to a doctor who had experience with gender-affirming procedures, according to the Collège des médecins du Québec.
While there is a long history of doctor-poets—one giant of mid-20th-century poetry, William Carlos Williams, was famously also a pediatrician—few people seem to know this or understand the power of combining the humanities and medicine.
Contrary to how a local physician admonished me, adjusting medication dosage is absolutely within my scope of practice. Besides, I answer to the patient (who is at the centre of all I do) and to the College of Pharmacists, not to physicians.
