The ​“face of Family Medicine in Manitoba,” Dr. José François’ sensitive leadership during the pandemic, his commitment to supporting innovative research, and his dedication to improving retention and recruitment of family physicians make him our 2024 Physician of the Year. As Manitoba struggled with the biggest shortage of family physicians in Canada, Dr. François championed strategies to better support both family doctors and their patients. As the academic and clinical lead for family medicine with the University of Manitoba and Shared Health, he has led expansions for family physician training, improvements for international medical graduates, the integration of the Master of Physician Assistant Studies program, and the creation of a Bilingual Family Medicine Residency Program, all while maintaining his own clinical practice. He has passionately supported improved models of care and remuneration to support true longitudinal family practice, while also promoting strong roles for family physicians in hospital and long-term care. He is the model of academic excellence, empathy, hard work, integrity, and leadership.

In more than four decades of service, anesthesiologist Dr. Stephen Kowalski has always led by example, with dedication, compassion and kindness. He worked as an intensivist, as a cardiac anesthesiologist, and as a general clinical anaesthesia practitioner. As a critical care physician, Dr. Kowalski worked primarily in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and was the first Medical Director of the Intermediate Intensive Care Unit. Throughout his career, he has held administrative roles in the Department of Anesthesia at the Max Rady College of Medicine, at the University of Manitoba, at Health Sciences Centre and at Doctors Manitoba. In addition to his active clinical practice, Dr. Kowalski has managed to conduct clinical research focused on perioperative outcomes of high-spinal anesthesia, predictors of first-pass success rate of intubations in critical care, and factors affecting liberation from mechanical ventilation. Affectionately known as ​“Special K,” one colleague says Dr. Kowalski is both the embodiment of the profession of anesthesia and human kindness. His joy for medicine and clarity of purpose continue to shine a light for others. 

Dr. Smith devoted his 52-year career to the understanding, advocacy, prevention, and care for people living with HIV. He worked tirelessly to break the stigma and fear of AIDS and to provide non-judgmental, compassionate, harm reduction-centred care. 

As Manitoba’s first openly gay physician, he spoke at the first Manitoba Gay Coalition Forum in 1977 and served on provincial and national committees for infectious diseases.

While studying in San Francisco, Dr. Smith witnessed the first signs of what would later become known as HIV/AIDS. With this knowledge, he was believed to be the first physician to detect HIV/AIDS in Manitoba and organized the first Manitoba AIDS forum in 1983 to educate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community about what was then a new epidemic that was feared and stigmatizing for those affected. 

Dr. Smith spoke to media, contributed to developing health policies, and authored Manitoba’s first safer-sex literature. He was also instrumental in developing the province’s confidential AIDS testing code. He opened The Fort Rouge Medical Clinic in1979, the first clinic to specialize in health care for gay men and lesbians, and helped found The Winnipeg Gay Community Health Centre in 1989 (now Nine Circles Community Health Centre). From 2007 until his retirement in 2019 at age 76, Dr. Smith was the founding physician and Medical Director of Our Own Health Centre, originally called The Gay Men’s Health Clinic. 

Dr. Dick Smith died on November 7, 2023, just 24 hours after what would be his last media interview advocating for medical assistance in dying, another issue championed during his career.

Our Resident of the Year, Dr. Lerly Luo is a Public Health Preventive Medicine resident who has shown exemplary dedication to improving the health of our communities locally, regionally, and internationally. She is deeply passionate about strengthening health systems and building bridges between the worlds of acute care, community medicine, and public health. Dr. Luo completed her Master of Public Health at Harvard and has served as a consultant for the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition, and Population Global Practice advising governments on the design of national strategy to strengthen the delivery of healthcare for chronic diseases. She is passionate about serving our structurally underserved, northern, and Indigenous communities working as a hospitalist and community physician for Sioux Lookout. She is an advocate for her peers and has represented the voices of young health professionals on international delegations to the WHO Executive Board meeting and World Health Assembly. She is constantly building spaces of connection, community, and discovery, believing the way we support, care for, and connect with each other makes all the difference.

Dr. Goulet is a family physician who has spent her career focused on closing the gaps in health outcomes for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in Manitoba and the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, addressing anti-Indigenous racism as the barrier along the way. She provides care and education, always with cultural humility in mind. She attributes her competency in this area directly to the teachings she received from community leaders, including Nellie Arragutainaq, Theresa Voisey and Joan Knott, including an ability to adapt the family medicine practice model to incorporate an Indigenous world view.

Dr. Goulet is focused on creating welcoming and safe environments where Indigenous patients receive high-quality health care, free of racism, by engaging clinical leadership and providers, facilitating education, and encouraging accountability. As medical advisor at Ongomiizwin Health Services, she has pushed for systems to be re-examined, re-imagined, and re-built. Her leadership, wisdom, determination, and compassion have left an indelible mark on colleagues and patients. 

She believes our health workforce should reflect the population. As Associate Dean of Admissions for the Max Rady College of Medicine, and in collaboration with other health science faculties, she is clearing a path for traditionally underrepresented groups, including Indigenous, racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+, rural and lower socio-economic applicants, ensuring students are supported to succeed in a system that poses many barriers.

Dr. Pymar is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist with an active voice for contraceptive care for Manitoba. For more than 20 years, she has been leading the way for improved contraception access, safe and accessible abortion, and family planning care, reproductive health education, early pregnancy loss diagnosis and management, and research. She is an incredible educator with numerous teaching awards to her name, and a sought-after mentor, spearheading educational events on implantable contraceptives. As a co-author of the Canadian Contraception Consensus, she has published multiple national guidelines with this group, with an extensive readership among physicians and other health care providers in Canada and internationally. She leads the education of family planning in Manitoba through the Ryan Residency Training program, one of only two such programs in Canada and Residency training in early pregnancy ultrasound. As a clinician and teacher, she consistently provides support and comforting guidance when handling complex situations. Whether patient, colleague or medical learner, Dr. Pymar will always support those in need and advocates intensely on their behalf.

In her career as a clinician, an academic, an administrator, a researcher, and as an advocate for more than 30 years, geriatrician Dr. van Ineveld has made remarkable contributions to the understanding of interdisciplinary geriatric care and education. She has served on countless national and provincial committees, and as an investigator on multiple research programs, while also holding leadership roles as Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and the Program Director for the Geriatric Medicine Subspecialty Program with the University of Manitoba. Dr. van Ineveld values collaborative care and inspires each team member to thrive in their areas of expertise. She has been a teacher in geriatrics at the University of Manitoba and has been influential in the creation of geriatrics teaching resources and interdisciplinary educational programs used by teaching programs across Canada. A true leader, she models the importance of continuous learning and always provides equitable, current, and compassionate care for older patients. Committed to fully understanding the complexities of each patient’s story, she helps them and their families navigate difficult and life-altering situations with honesty and empathy.