Uxbridge doctors open the door to the realities of family medicine in new book

COLLEEN GREEN The Standard

UXBRIDGE: Two Uxbridge family physicians are inviting readers behind the scenes of medicine, with their new book, Family Rooms, a collection of stories exploring the humour, heartbreak, privilege and challenges of family medicine.

Written by Dr. Carlye Jensen and Dr. Jennifer Wilson, the book takes readers into clinics, emergency departments, hospital wards, patients’ homes and other unexpected settings where doctors make decisions in real time and where medicine intersects with everyday life.

Through stories drawn from decades of practice, the physicians offer a candid look at what family medicine really involves.

With healthcare systems under increasing pressure and questions being raised about the future of family medicine, Family Rooms examines the discipline, the challenges it faces, and what it could become in the hands of a new generation of physicians.

Dr. Jensen has practised family medicine in a variety of settings, including clinics, emergency departments and hospital wards, as well as making the occasional house call. Her medical journey took her from undergraduate studies, at McGill University, to medical school, at the University of Calgary, followed by Family and Emergency Medicine residency, at Western University.

In 2007, Carlye Jensen settled in Uxbridge, where she found an ideal combination of family practice, teaching and community.

Away from medicine, she is a mother of three boys and a wife, daughter and sister in a large family. She says, her experiences provided plenty of opportunities to learn how to manage chaos, long before becoming a physician.

Through Family Rooms, Dr. Jensen hopes readers will gain a glimpse into the everyday reality of family medicine and the privilege, humour, heartbreak and joy accompanying the profession.

Dr. Wilson has practised comprehensive family medicine in her hometown of Uxbridge for more than 25 years. A graduate of McMaster University, she later completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

For more than two decades, Jennifer Wilson has also worked with colleagues in Ghana, to help develop long-term global health partnerships, work she considers among the most rewarding of her career. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Wilson's family includes her husband Graham, five children and their partners, as well as their dog Francesca and granddog Sally.

For Jennifer, the stories in Family Rooms reflect the heart of family medicine: enduring relationships and the privilege of walking alongside patients and families through some of life's most meaningful moments.

The book is Dr. Wilson's second. She previously wrote Grant Us Tomorrow, a medical memoir inspired by her work in Ghana.

Together, Dr. Carlye Jensen and Dr. Jennifer Wilson offer readers an intimate look at a profession often experienced from the other side of the examination-room door.

Family Rooms provides an opportunity to step through that door and see the people, decisions and relationships shaping family medicine—and its future.