Dr. Jennifer Balfour completed medical school at the University of Alberta and residency in Vancouver at BCCH. She chose her field of pediatric specialty because of the range of conditions, ages, the importance of family, context, socioeconomic factors, the balance of chronic and acute care.
For Jennifer, the most meaningful thing about her practicing medicine is teamwork. Teamwork is very evident in pediatrics, the privilege of being at crucial moments from infant birth, life-limiting diagnoses, personal crises, and sharing deeply personal stories. In addition, making practice sustainable and innovative in increasing system capacity is a favourite focus of thought.
Jennifer's professional interests include developing and leading a new distributed training program in Pediatrics Residency on the Island and being an early leader of pediatrics undergraduate training for new medical school. She is also involved in the BC Pediatrics executive society, moving points of advocacy forward and speaking as part of a group that points to social inequity and relationship to health. She has also accepted a new position on the Doctors of BC Committee for Health Promotion.
Jennifer has big hopes for the future of healthcare. Some of the things she hopes to see are:
- Increasing capacity in novel ways.
- Supporting care of the most chronic and frail.
- Generating new systems of care that move past older ideas of single practitioner with single patient that values high volume, procedures.
- Single problems over Longitudinal care, prevention, complexity and equity as important areas of focus
As well as making sure she and others bring a growth mindset that supports improvement thinking and design progress in new initiatives.
In her spare time, you can find her walking her dog, reading, and sharing space with her three teenage girls.