The ‘what if’ of Canadian medical politics: Remembering Dr. Adam Linton

Historians and non-historians alike often play the "what if" game.What if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated?What if those three planes had missed their targets on 9/11?What if the Titanic hadn’t had an up close and personal encounter with a giant iceberg?What if Trump had never been born?(Maybe I went a bit too far with that one. Sorry.)Some of us denizens who dwell deep in the bowels of Canadian medical politics have their favourite “what if.”What if Dr. Adam Linton had lived just a bit longer.For you Gen Z and Gen Alpha types reading this, Dr. Linton was a superstar in the game of medical politics in this country, and the president of the Ontario Medical Association beginning in 1991.He was a fierce defender of medicare and a man who could give any politician, any bureaucrat fits. He could easily undress—often humorously—a poorly reasoned government policy or decision. He would have had a field day watching healthcare policymaking these past few years.I saw Dr. Linton at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in August of 1991. There are very long escalators at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where the meeting was taking place, and I was deep within myself most of the way down.Suddenly, I saw him standing there by himself at the bottom. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I was shocked at the way he looked. I didn’t know what to say, but I thought against saying the obvious.Some giggles and a few bon mots, then we went our separate ways. I regret to say it was the last time I spoke with him. He died Jan. 3, 1992 of pancreatic cancer in the middle of his term as OMA president. Something like that hasn’t happened again. More than 250 national, provincial and territorial presidents have come and gone since then.Dr. Linton was a keen innovator and visionary. He invented the concept of the joint management committee (JMC) made up of physicians and government officials to help co-operatively steer provincial policymaking vessels.Politicians of all stripes often cite the need for their teams to sing from the same sheet of music. Dr. Linton didn’t sing it. He wrote it.When the OMA reached an agreement with the province in May of 1991, the JMC was part of the package. The ink was hardly dry on the deal when such a revolutionary tool became the talk in political circles from Halifax to Vancouver and all points in between. Unfortunately, the council held only a handful of meetings before Dr. Linton’s death.I was in Halifax in November of 1991 and Vancouver in January of 1992, and tongues were wagging on both coasts.As the centre of a vortex of promise, Dr. Linton became a driving force in the Canadian medico-political establishment. But his potential was never fully realized. Authors define “tragedy” as unrealized potential.In some way, shape or form, provinces across the country have, at one time or another over the intervening period, adopted a version of the JMC with its abundance of promise.Thing is, it was a difficult vehicle to navigate right from the start, and only Dr. Linton understood it well enough to drive it. There’s been a dearth of such stellar leadership since.It seems like there continues to be one now.Matt Borsellino was national editor of the Medical Post for many years.

The ‘what if’ of Canadian medical politics: Remembering Dr. Adam Linton

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