What does the sole daughter in a household with three brothers, all of whom are engineers, decide to do for a living? Just to be different, Catherine Mahut chose to be a surgeon.
Most surgeons are still men. Although Dr. Mahut is young enough not to have noticed any bias during her years in medical school, she’s also experienced enough to have risen to become Surgical Oncology Lead of the Southlake Regional Cancer Program in Newmarket – Ontario’s newest cancer treatment centre.
Growing up near the intersection of Lawrence and Keele in Toronto’s west end, Catherine is a self-described “Toronto girl” who attended the University of Toronto for her 12 years of undergrad and medical education. Upon graduation, she moved to York Region, just north of Toronto, where she opened up a general surgery practice that she operated for 14 years.
As a female surgeon, and with her excellent bedside manner, Dr. Mahut’s practice naturally had a strong focus on breast cancer. Women going through this frightening ordeal felt comfortable around Catherine, and her reputation grew. When Southlake Regional Health Centre (formerly York County Hospital) got the green light to become the region’s cancer centre, they needed someone to pilot the Breast Diagnostic Assessment Unit. They didn’t have to look far, and Dr. Mahut became the project’s Surgical Oncology Lead.
The Breast Diagnostic Assessment Unit is a new initiative of Ontario’s health care system. Its function is to streamline the process of breast cancer assessment and diagnosis by providing women one point of contact for all the various steps, in a comfortable and friendly environment. Its goals are to reduce both the wait and the worry that breast cancer patients currently undergo.
Opening in early March, the unit will provide mammogram, biopsy, and diagnosis services all under one roof. Patients will no longer have to make and wait for separate appointments that may take a month or more for completion. “It’s one face, one point of contact for the patient and family to connect with. One person has their finger on the pulse of what is happening with the patient,” says Dr. Mahut.
The Unit is designed to make the entire process comfortable for its patients. The warm and inviting interior uses calming colours, sand-blasted glass, and aesthetically pleasing furnishings to create a restful environment for patients and their families.
But creating a centre like the Breast Diagnostic Assessment Unit – part of a larger trend towards patient-centred health care – depends on the will of the local medical establishment, and funding from the local community. And while this may sound like a situation crying out for private sector involvement, Dr. Mahut believes that the public is best served by public healthcare. “We have a good system here,” she says, “One that’s misunderstood by many in the U.S.”
And while health care systems, both public and private, face critical challenges around the world, Dr. Mahut – though not against private involvement – is very concerned about any change that might leave some people behind. She believes strongly in the Canadian system, and that her role is to work from the inside, motivating others to do the things that make the system work. “That’s how I see my role,” she insists, “Doing my best from the inside to make more responsive, more effective, and more efficient health care.”
And what about the future? In the short run, treating other cancers – lung, bowel, and prostate – are certainly on Catherine’s agenda for Southlake’s Assessment Unit. In the long run, Dr. Mahut is interested in expanding her dual role of healer and administrator, helping to engineer a better public health care system – one that can keep people as healthy as possible, while respecting the citizen and taxpayer who ultimately foot the bill.
Hugh Reilly is the founder of Thatradio.com, where you can listen to his Liquid Lunch radio show every weekday from noon-2pm.
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