‘We need to talk about the pandemic’: Professor Michael Kidd

The power of the family doctor, the devastating impact of the pandemic and the chance to learn from it, were themes threading through Professor Michael Kidd’s keynote speech on the closing day of the WONCA World Conference.
 
The former president of both the RACGP and WONCA, who is recognised by many GPs in Australia as one of the most visible faces of the primary care COVID-19 response, Professor Kidd at several points acknowledged the role of doctors as the world reacted to the pandemic.
 
‘At times you needed to put your own health and wellbeing at risk and that of your loved ones in order to deliver essential care,’ he said. ‘Especially in the early days when personal protective equipment was in short supply around the world, and before the vaccines became available.
 
‘Each of our nations owes you a huge debt of gratitude and appreciation.’
 
Professor Kidd also looked back at the history of WONCA, noting the organisation now represents around 500,000 family doctors in more than 130 countries around the world.
 
He said they would account for more than two billion patient consultations each year.
 
‘That’s the scope of our vital work and our contributions to healthcare in each of our countries,’ he told delegates in Sydney.
 
‘But we need to be doing even more. And at a time when we’re seeing falling interest in our profession in some countries, we need to boost that because we have over seven billion people sharing this planet with us.
 
‘Everybody deserves to have their own family doctor.’
 
Professor Kidd went on to share behind-the-scenes insights into how he found himself leading the primary care response to COVID-19 in Australia, recounting the fraught and fast-moving early days of COVID-19.
 
Cutting short a role with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Canada, Professor Kidd became Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer in early 2020, and was asked to develop the principles of the primary care response with an almost immediate deadline.
 
‘This was my first all-nighter for a very long time,’ he said.
 
Professor Kidd also talked about the widespread introduction of telehealth, referencing former Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt’s description of the move being ‘a decade’s worth of reform in 10 days’.  
 
‘It’s been the greatest privilege of my career to be in a role like that at a time like that in our nation’s history,’ he said.
 
‘And I have never worked harder in my life, even as an intern, [never] worked longer hours [than] during this last few years.
 
‘But it was also an opportunity to conduct research and to show how primary care is so essential to our healthcare systems, and how primary care research can really impact health systems and responses to a pandemic.’


RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins interviewing Professor Michael Kidd after his WONCA World Conference keynote address. 

Pausing at one point, Professor Kidd asked delegates to reflect on the service, commitment and loss of primary colleagues around the world.
 
‘It’s hard to keep going,’ he said.
 
However, Professor Kidd also stressed the importance of meaningful reflection on the pandemic response.
 
‘Talking about COVID-19 can be very painful,’ he said.  
 
‘Many of us have lost loved ones, friends and colleagues during this pandemic, and many of us have lived through very distressing experiences.
 
‘But … we do need to talk about the pandemic and what happens if we want to learn the lessons and reform our health systems in response, so that next time we can do even better at protecting our populations.’
 
Professor Kidd, who has now moved to a new role as director of the new UNSW Centre for Future Health Systems, outlined some of the academic research that has already been carried out on the both the response to the pandemic and the unfolding impact.
 
From the importance of giving consistent advice to the impact of the pandemic on young people’s mental health, the research could help improve primary care in the future, he believes.
 
‘For many healthcare practitioners, the pandemic exposed structural weaknesses in our health systems that we need to address now, to protect our populations into the future,’ he said.
 
‘For many of us, and for our patients who are still vulnerable, or who are experiencing the long-term effects of COVID-19, this pandemic is not over.’
 
According to Professor Kidd, the need to strengthen health systems is not only for next pandemic, but also to enable countries to meet future health challenges facing patients and communities around the world.
 
‘This is an unprecedented opportunity for us to envisage what those changes need to look like in each of our countries,’ he said.
 
In closing, Professor Kidd referenced the words of the first President of WONCA, Dr Monty Kent-Hughes: ‘The future of our professional discipline will depend on our ability to work together in the service of humanity.’
 
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