Brian Day

Brian Day, (born January 29, 1947) is an orthopedic surgeon and health researcher in Canada, a past president of the Canadian Medical Association, and a prominent sometimes controversial advocate for privatization of Canada's health system.

As the founder and medical director of a private clinic Cambie Surgery Centre and Specialist Referral Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia, Day is a spokesperson for a high-profile, multi-year and ongoing lawsuit against the provincial government, Cambie Surgeries Corporation v. British Columbia (Medical Services Commission).

that is sometimes cited publicly as 'The Day Case'.

Day was raised in Toxteth, a working-class area of post-war Liverpool, England.

He was the eldest of four children in a family with strong Labour views.

Both his mother and father were socialists.

Day credited his personal shift from the political left to the political center-right by his disenchantment with the British labour movement's jurisdictional inertia and contributions to inefficiency in health care.

Day attended the Liverpool Institute, the same high school attended by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

His family's neighbourhood could be tough.

Day has a permanent scar on a finger from a knife fight when he was 10 years old.

Day entered medical school at age 18 at the University of Manchester, from where he graduated in 1970.

After an initial interest in general surgery, which he pursued as a postgraduate in Manchester and at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, he focused on orthopaedics.

He obtained his medical degrees, MB ChB from the University of Manchester, and post-graduate qualifications in both internal medicine and general surgery.

From 1970 to 2014, Day wrote more than 150 scientific articles or book chapters, in areas of orthopaedics and arthroscopic surgery / sports medicine, and on the topic of health policy.

In July 1973, Day moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

In 1978, Day completed his training and a M.Sc.

degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

In 1979, Day received the Canadian Orthopaedic Association's Edouard Samson Award for outstanding orthopaedic research in Canada.

Following a fellowship in traumatology, in Basel, Switzerland, Oxford, and Los Angeles, he began practice at the Vancouver General Hospital.

After starting in trauma, he developed an interest and expertise in orthopaedic sports medicine and arthroscopy.

As an orthopedic surgeon, he earned an international reputation for performing arthroscopic surgery on hips, knees, shoulders and elbows.

Day is regarded as being instrumental in the introduction of arthroscopic joint surgery in Canada.

His father, a pharmacist, was killed in 1981 by Hooligans looking for drugs during riots in the neighbourhood.

Day cites the Canada Health Act of 1984 being responsible for rationing of care that has resulted in over a million Canadians suffering on wait lists, and to more than 5 million without a doctor.

The possible contribution of misdiagnosis by British doctors for the death of Day's mother in 1986 is cited as his dissatisfaction with the British health system.

In 2003, Maclean's Magazine named Day one its top 50 Canadians "to watch", describing him as "an iconoclast, whose time is now."

He is referred to as "Dr. Profit" by opponents who believe his legal challenges will threaten Canada's publicly funded medicare system, and Prophet by supporters for his advocacy of a role for patient choice and the right to obtain private insurance in the face of long government wait lists for care.

Day has argued many Canadians are being hypocritical towards private healthcare, because 70 per cent of Canadians buy healthcare insurance.

Many with such insurance themselves claim to oppose private healthcare, while embracing it for themselves.

The other 30 per cent of Canadians who cannot afford the extra healthcare insurance receive poorer access to care.

Day is a founding member and was 2004 president of the Arthroscopy Association of North America, being the second Canadian elected to that position.

In August 2006, Day was elected president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) for the 2007/08 term, despite a challenge at the convention floor by another British Columbian physician (whom Day had beaten in the nomination process) regarding Day's views about for-profit health care.

He was the first orthopaedic surgeon in the 148-year history of the CMA to be elected president.

Day states that his advocacy as president of CMA was for a hybrid public-private system, not a full replacement by private hospitals.

The CMA policy drafted in 2007 was "When access to timely care cannot be provided in the publicly funded system, Canadians should be able to use private health insurance to reimburse the cost of care obtained in the private sector."

In 2015, Day was temporarily announced as the president-elect for Doctors of BC, the provincial medical association in British Columbia, because of a win by a single vote difference.

The election was then rescinded because of an error found in properly categorizing one ballot.

Day then lost the subsequent run-off election in June 2015 to Alan Ruddiman by 603 votes after the publicity about the single-vote win escalated participation to the highest turnout by physician members of the association.

In May 2016, Day was defeated 1,896 to 1,674 votes by Trina Larsen Soles in the election for the 2017–18 Doctors of BC presidency.

Day is a member of the editorial board for the BC Medical Journal.