A Winkler doctor has been named by Doctors Manitoba as one of its Top 40 Under 40 in Medicine picks for 2023.
Dr. Aly Dhala, 38, joins a list that this year includes nine medical students, 10 residents, and 21 practicing physicians from across Manitoba.
“The top 40 are a truly amazing group from our medical community who give me hope about the future of our profession and the care Manitobans will be able to count on,” said Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Michael Boroditsky. “They share an inspirational commitment to pushing the boundaries of medicine in ways that improve patient care, develop and introduce new ways to diagnose and treat patients, and advocate for physicians’ and patients’ well-being.”
Dhala joined the staff at the C.W Wiebe Medical Centre in Winkler in 2014 after completing his residency in family medicine in Dauphin with a focus on rural medicine.
He has served as the medical director of medicine at the Boundary Trails Health Centre and is currently the chief of staff at the regional hospital, a role he took on at the height of the pandemic. He is also the medical director at the clinic.
This honour is a humbling one, Dhala says.
“I knew I was nominated by one of my colleagues at the clinic. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s nice when one of your colleagues considers you for one of these awards. It’s very validating for some of the work that we do.”
He’s quick to pass along much of the kudos to his colleagues.
“I think a lot of the credit that I get for the work that’s recognized really comes from the fact that I work with a fantastic group of physicians, both in Winkler and Morden and at the hospital,” Dhala says. “It’s such a great group to work with and that I’ve learned a lot from. And it makes advocating for them and representing them a very easy thing to do.”
Dhala’s practice encompasses not only primary care but also cancer care, emergency care, and hospital medicine. He also works as a doctor at the Salem Home personal care home.
That variety is something he was looking for from the get-go.
“Family medicine in a rural perspective is more broad and varied than in an more urban setting,” Dhala says. “In my training in Dauphin I worked in the ER, did cancer care, and more inpatient medicine work than a family physician who would have an office-exclusive based practice would have.
“That really spoke to me. So when I was looking for a place to work, I wanted to work somewhere there was a similar setup.”
The Morden-Winkler area fit the bill, and Dhala has become an integral part of the local medical community in the decade since he began his practice here.
In the last few years he’s begun to take a keen interest in the administrative side of health-care as well, taking up leadership roles at both the clinic and the hospital.
“I had thought about doing that kind of work in the future, but it happened faster than I had originally planned for,” Dhala says of his chief of staff job, explaining the position became vacant mid-pandemic. “We were in the depths of COVID at the height of the pandemic and there was lots of work to be done at the hospital in terms of managing how we would care for patients sick with COVID, and just run the facility in general. So there was lots of work to do.”
Dhala has found it to be incredibly rewarding work, as it gives him the opportunity to not only advocate for his fellow health-care workers but also effect real change.
“It works because I get to practice medicine alongside with my colleagues and at the same time have a voice in trying to make things better for them,” he says. “I think the experience would have been different if I was in an entirely administrative role and not being able to practice with the group.
“I think it’s harder doing both at the same time, but it’s given me a unique perspective on things. It helps me advocate for some of the changes I’ve been able to put in place over the last few years.”
There are a lot of inefficiencies in the medical system, Dhala observes, and he’s tried to tackle some of them to improve conditions for staff and patients alike.
“It’s hard to complain about things if you don’t participate in making changes,” he says. “I’m someone who, if I get frustrated with something or something isn’t working, I would like to find a way to change it. That’s what drew me to more of the administrative work I’m doing.”
Having a hand in lots of different aspects of medicine—primary care, emergency care, long term care—also gives him a broader perspective in his work.
“There’s lots of benefits in working in all of the different areas because you can see, at least from an administrative perspective, how the different components of the system interact,” Dhal says, “and you can have that big picture view.”
Likewise, as a clinician he’s able to help guide patients and their families through what to expect when they’re moving through the system—receiving cancer treatment or getting surgery or entering a care home—because he’s had firsthand experience in all those areas.
“In some ways it can be difficult working in all of the different areas, but in other ways it’s complementary because you have insight into all the different areas … and it can help you communicate with your patients who have to navigate the system.”
Dhala and his fellow Top 40 winners will be honoured at a celebration in Winnipeg Nov. 3.
