As we near the end of 2025, I am reminded of how I was supposed to graduate from my public health and preventive medicine residency program this year. I didn’t because Canadian medical and public health institutions were not only silent about the ongoing genocide in Palestine, but they sought to repress and punish those who dared speak out. I went into medicine and public health because I care about basic common humanity and the sacred work of caring for and healing one another in a deeply sick society and world.
Studying and working in public health was something I loved doing. To think deeply about the social and structural determinants of health, like the food, water, housing, education, and healthcare systems that support and sustain the health of populations and communities. But to also think of the broader political and colonial determinants of health like policies and institutions steeped in white supremacy and racism that not only remain silent in the face of genocide but actively help enable it by attempting to silence those who are in solidarity with all people who are oppressed. And to think deeply or to study these systems is not enough, but we also have to practice and exercise what solidarity looks like especially in times that require it the most to move towards a different system altogether that doesn’t center capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism.
Working as a family doctor and moving through the world over the past year, I have seen so many populations and communities under attack and threat. People who use drugs. Queer and trans people. People who are racialized and othered. People who are immigrants, refugees, and seeking a better life free from oppression. Ultimately liberation is the best medicine. Liberation from the forms of structural oppression that is at the root of so much suffering, illness, disease, and death in this world. May we continue to work to connect the struggles for liberation, so that we work towards a world where basic common humanity prevails over hate, patriarchy, and colonialism. May more of us take up the sacred work of caring for and healing one another in a deeply sick society and world.