What is the solution to our current mental health crisis: prevention, research, or a wellness-based model? Dr. Maria Patriquin, Assistant Professor in Family Medicine, shares her own thoughts based on her personal experiences with mental health.  

"As someone who has both used mental health care services and provides them, I have intimate knowledge of just how hard it can be. The difference between a human and a human being with mental illness is a degree of suffering. We are all suffering and it is time to humanize this experience and work together towards a shared vision, with common values for health and well-being that should serve to attract physicians to areas of need as well to retain those of us who really believe in healthy sustainable collaborative practices."

Dr. Maria Patriquin, MD, CCFP, is founder of Living Well Integrative Health Center, Halifax (www.livingwellihc.ca), founding & board member of the Association for Positive Psychiatry of Canada (www.appc.ca), Atlantic Canada representative of the mental health committee of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, assistant professor, department of family medicine, Dalhousie University and recipient of the CFPC’s 2016 patient medical home caring and compassion grant.

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