Dr. Susan McNair has a long list of accomplishments in her career, but she wants to make it clear that she is first and foremost a primary care physician.
Yet there is no denying that Dr. McNair is a leader within the medical profession in the area of sexual assault and domestic violence. Since 1991, she has been the Medical Director of the Regional Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Treatment Centre at St. Joseph’s Hospital in London. This clinic offers specialized forensic, medical, and psychological care to people who have experienced sexual assault and domestic violence. Dr. McNair has been a part of this initiative since its founding, and her clinical expertise, leadership skills and research have helped this effort become a provincial program, expanding to 36 clinics across Ontario. Now, as co-Medical Advisor to the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Treatment Centres, she continues as a clinician, educator and researcher to transform how physicians treat—and interact with—these patients.
It is for these and many other accomplishments that CPSO’s Board of Directors honoured Dr. McNair at its September 2024 Board Meeting.
Dr. McNair’s involvement in the area of sexual assault and domestic violence began when her hospital recognized that these patients, arriving at the emergency department having experienced trauma, needed specialized care.
Dr. McNair has built an extraordinary career in this area through her clinical work, as an expert witness in the court system, and through her teaching and research on the factors involved in sexual assault and domestic violence. She is also passionate about educating the next generation of physicians at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.
A key to success in care and teaching has been to normalize how we talk about sexual assault and domestic violence; to see it as a confluence of physical, psychological, and emotional trauma, and to treat it as such. “It’s been such an evolution. The first time [the sexual assault centre] got funding, we had to meet with patients in a cleared-out closet dedicated to the cause. Now, we have a full centre in the hospital with examining rooms and interview rooms. The needs of patients are recognized, and we are ready to respond.”
A key to success in care and teaching has been to normalize how we talk about sexual assault and domestic violence.
Dr. McNair’s work with patients who have experienced sexual assault has led her to another area of focus — human trafficking, a growing problem in London and along the Highway 401 corridor. “Working in this area breaks a lot of stereotypes,” she says. “You quickly learn that children and young adults from a variety of demographics are at risk.”
Her work has reinforced for Dr. McNair just how critical primary care is. “Over 60 percent of the women and children we treat don’t have a primary care physician, and we are now starting to offer them a program of trauma-specialized primary care,” she says. This is where her longstanding commitment to family medicine has made a real impact.
