Advocacy
While in medical school, he became involved in health care advocacy. At the time of the Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, also known as the Romanow Commission, he helped found a student group called Health Professionals for Medicare dedicated to educating the public about the benefits of a single-payer, publicly funded health care system. He remains passionate about this issue and is presently vice-chair of the national advocacy group Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
Drawing on his experiences as a family physician in the inner city of Saskatoon, Mozambique, and rural Saskatchewan, Dr. Meili argues that health delivery too often focuses on treatment of immediate causes and ignores conditions that lead to poor health.
He also works for the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. As the head of the Division of Social Accountability, he’s responsible for helping ensure that Saskatchewan’s future doctors are equipped to meet the health needs of the diverse communities they will serve. Among Ryan’s focuses are aboriginal, international, rural, and inner-city health.
Meili is perhaps best known for his role as a co-founder of SWITCH, the Student Wellness Initiative Toward Community Health. Ryan helped spearhead this student-run, interdisciplinary, inner-city clinic, whose mandate is to bring students from nursing, medicine, social work, physiotherapy, pharmacy, nutrition, and numerous other disciplines together to serve the residents of Saskatoon’s core communities. Ryan was also the clinic’s first coordinator, and continues to work there as a supervising doctor.
In 2001, Meili was arrested during a peaceful protest at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. He received an absolute discharge and the conviction was erased after one year.
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