Kitchener family doctor recognized with national award
KITCHENER — A Kitchener doctor will be honoured with a national award as a family physician of the year.
Dr. Michael Lee-Poy will be presented with a Family Physician of the Year award from the College of Family Physicians of Canada at a gathering in Montreal in November.
“It’s very humbling,” said Lee-Poy, who works at the Centre for Family Medicine in downtown Kitchener.
“I think a lot of physicians do great things and you think you’re one of many.”
Along with practising as a family doctor, Lee-Poy also teaches at McMaster University and Western University, and is involved with the Kitchener campus of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
The national honour follows Lee-Poy being chosen for a regional family physician year of the award by the Ontario College of Family Physicians.
He was nominated by Dr. Dorothy Bakker, who has been working with Lee-Poy since 2007 on the original team that worked to start the new medical school campus in Waterloo Region.
He took that on just a year after graduating from his family medicine residency.
“He’s got lots and lots of roles. He’s pretty tireless,” Bakker said.
Bakker said he’s both an excellent clinician and educator, always collaborating with other professionals to provide the best patient care possible and going out of his way to support medical students training as family doctors.
“He really goes the extra mile,” Bakker said.
He’s also an advocate for all patients in the region focused on “making sure our community can have the best care,” she said.
Lee-Poy is at the forefront of new issues and takes initiative to ensure they’re being addressed well. For instance, he was a leading force behind TransEd, an online learning platform designed to boost the comfort and competence of health care students when providing care for transgender patients.
“That was a bit of a big project,” Lee-Poy said. “But it was something I was very passionate about making sure it was completed.”
Bakker said his professional accomplishments are already quite impressive, considering he’s still relatively early in his career.
Lee-Poy credited his colleagues and the region’s innovative medical community for the support that allowed him to achieve so much professionally, while also finding a balance between work and his young family at home.
“I really do feel it’s also a collaboration of our community,” Lee-Poy said. “It’s provided me with this opportunity to be involved in so many different things I’ve been interested in.”