Who are you and where do you work?

I am Cheryl Levitt and I am a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. I am the immediate past Chair of the Wonca Working Party on Women and Family Medicine and the immediate past Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and did my medical school at the University of Witwatersrand and my internship at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto, in 1976, which was the year of the Soweto riots. I moved to Canada in 1977 and have been here ever since. I have worked for eight years in remote rural practice in British Columbia and have been in academic medicine since 1984. I spent 13 years in Montreal at the Herzl Family Practice Centre and McGill University, before moving to McMaster University in Hamilton in 1996. I have a wonderful family. My husband, Andy Orkin is a human rights lawyer and my daughter, Jessica is a criminal and human rights lawyer. My son, Aaron is a resident in family medicine. I have always had a family medicine practice and have been passionate about a broad and comprehensive generalist approach to my practice, although I have a special interest in women’s leadership, women’s rights, women’s health, breastfeeding, pregnancy and postpartum care.

 What do you like about the work you do?

I love family medicine and its role in health care. I enjoy tackling problems, designing solutions and making them happen. I try to be in control of my work and home life and work on many organizations and with many different people to overcome my personal barriers. I love interacting with people (including patients), working with them on challenges and getting to know them more and more over time. I feel privileged to be a family doctor. I love working with young people and mentoring them so that they can get as much out of their careers as I do. I love interacting with my peers and being inspired by their experiences and accomplishments.

What are your main challenges?

My main challenges right now are the adjustments I need to make with the changes I have undergone professionally. Over the past 10 years, I have been chair of a Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians. I have just returned from a sabbatical and am now adjusting to a new career and pace. I think these are challenges people face in the latter part of their work-life.

How does being a woman family physician affect your work and homelife?

I love being a woman and a family doctor. I enjoy domestic life, cooking, ironing, knitting, gardening, mothering and wifeing! I also enjoy working. The key to my happiness has been my husband’s and my children’s loving support and I have thrived on it. Balancing my work and my home life has never been easy, but in our family, we have tried to openly discuss our challenges, hopes and plans to enable each other to do the best we can. Sometimes we have done better than other times. My husband and my children are my most valued critics, my best editors and my most cherished counsellors.

What interests you about the WONCA Working Party for Women in Family Medicine?

No work has been as exciting as working with the Wonca Working Party on Women and Family Medicine over the last eight years. I feel we have accomplished so much! I have developed wonderful working friendships with family doctors all over the world. I have learnt how to write and edit with a large group of summer students and colleagues in other centers and have been inspired and deeply influenced by the women family doctors with whom I have worked on monographs, literature reviews, surveys, articles and newsletters over the past few years. I think the most wonderful experience of my work-life was the historic meeting we had in Hamilton in 2005 and I was thrilled that the Wonca Council endorsed the output of that meeting, in Singapore in 2007: The HER Statement and the 10 Steps to Gender Equity in Health. I believe that we are involved in an organization (WWPWFM) that has the potential to change the way health care is delivered throughout the world. I hope to continue to grow in the working party and further develop the precious relationships with dear friends around the world. I really look forward to our next triennial meeting in Cancun in 2010.