Family Physician-Administrative Leadership Partnership
Empowering Family Physician Dyads for System-Wide Impact
An immersive leadership program designed to strengthen healthcare leadership by fostering effective collaboration between family physicians and administrative leaders.
Ontario’s healthcare system is undergoing a profound transformation—one that demands not only innovation in care delivery but also a new model of leadership. At the heart of this transformation is the need for strong, collaborative partnerships between family physicians and executive leads.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians, in partnership with the Rotman School of Management, is pleased to launch the Family Physician-Administrative Leadership Partnership, a program that provides a unique opportunity for dyads to step away from day-to-day pressures and engage in deep, collaborative learning together.
Through interactive sessions, real-world case studies and peer dialogue, participants will strengthen their collaboration, gain practical tools for leading in complexity and explore how to shape the future of healthcare in Ontario. This is more than a leadership program —it’s a catalyst for building resilient, high-performing partnerships that can lead change at both the organizational and system level.
Who Should Apply
This program is designed for family physicians and executive leaders who are working together—or preparing to work together in dyad leadership roles across a variety of team-based care models, including: Ontario Health Teams (OHTs), Primary Care Networks (PCNs), Family Health Teams (FHTs), Community Health Centres (CHCs) and other integrated primary care settings.
Program Dates
Thursday October 30, 2025 from 4:30 pm to 8:00 pm
Friday October 31, 2025 from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Saturday November 1, 2025 from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Location
This program will be held in person at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto located at 105 St George St, Toronto, ON.
Fees
For those located in Ontario, the fee is $600 + HST per person, or $1,200 + HST per dyad.
For those located outside of Ontario, the cost for family physician-administrator pairs participating is $1000+HST per person ($2000 + HST per dyad).
The fees above include all program materials, meals and access to world-class faculty and facilitation over the 2.5-day immersive experience.
All participants are responsible for any additional costs they may incur, including travel, accommodations, locum coverage and other related expenses.
This is a pilot program, currently subsidized by the OCFP. Please note that future cohorts may not be offered at the same rate, as continued subsidy cannot be guaranteed.
Mainpro+ Credits
This program has been submitted for approval for up to 15.5 Mainpro+ credits by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Ontario Chapter.
Program Highlights
Strengthen Your Dyad Partnership
Deepen trust and collaboration between family physician leads and executive leaders. This program provides a structured environment to clarify roles, align on shared goals and build a unified leadership approach that supports integrated care delivery.
Gain Practical, Actionable Leadership Tools
Learn and apply proven frameworks in strategic alignment, decision-making under uncertainty and leading with influence. Sessions are designed to be immediately relevant to the challenges faced by dyad leaders in Ontario’s primary care system.
Break Down Silos Across Clinical and Administrative Domains
Develop a shared understanding of each other’s perspectives, responsibilities and pressures. This mutual insight enhances communication, fosters empathy and enables more cohesive and effective leadership across organizational boundaries.
Explore the Future of Healthcare
Understand the key trends reshaping healthcare in Canada, from emerging technologies to shifting patient expectations, and learn how to position your organization to adapt and thrive in a rapidly evolving system.
Contribute to System-Wide Transformation
Be part of a growing network of physician–executive dyads committed to advancing leadership excellence in primary care. The program supports a scalable model for leadership development that can be replicated across Ontario to drive broader health system change.
Program Curriculum
One of the key challenges associated with success in leadership roles is the ability to facilitate collaboration across different groups and departments. We often hear about how “silos” develop in organizations, with each silo focused on its own objectives, challenges and opportunities. This session helps leaders get things done through people from different departments (different silos) working together to collaborate on challenges facing the entire organization.
An organization’s leaders are responsible for rapidly addressing and resolving competing claims for the organization’s limited resources. Critical, therefore, are the sophisticated leadership skills required to translate one’s technical knowledge into effective actions in order to implement strategy. In this session, participants will learn about aligning an organization’s strategy with its formal structure, human resources, reward systems, processes and informal social networks. In short, how to translate strategic intent into organizational action.
In this session, we will turn our attention explicitly to the topic of crucial decision making under uncertainty. Many of the most important decisions that managers and leaders face are choices that must be made in the absence of knowledge about how things will turn out. How do people typically make these types of decisions, and how should they decide? We will use a case as a vehicle to discuss decision making under uncertainty, as well as to discuss some of the pitfalls that commonly characterize group decision making. We will conclude with some advice about how to minimize your, and others’, susceptibility to the groupthink problem in collective judgment.
As you advance in your career and assume greater and greater responsibilities for your organization and its impact on society, you are increasingly faced with the challenges of acquiring and using power.
In this session, we will uncover what power really is, how it’s gained and lost, and how you can use it for good. You will see how power changes the behavior and the very thoughts of both the powerful and the powerless, and you will develop personal strategies to map the distribution of power in your environment and use your power not to control and dominate, but to inspire and energize all those whose resources and skills you need to lead change and have positive impact.
In today’s increasingly complex healthcare environment, delivering high-value care requires more than clinical excellence or operational efficiency—it demands the seamless integration of diverse expertise across clinical and administrative domains. Yet, collaboration across disciplines is challenging.
This session explores the essential leadership capabilities needed to foster a culture of collaboration within dyad partnerships. We will highlight four distinct skill sets that enable leaders to build trust, navigate differences, and co-create value that neither partner could achieve alone. Participants will leave with practical strategies to strengthen their own dyad relationships and lead more effectively in a system that increasingly depends on integrated leadership.
This session offers participants a unique opportunity to hear directly from a practicing family physician–executive dyad about their real-world experiences leading together. Through storytelling and reflection, the guest speakers will share insights into the challenges, breakthroughs, and lessons learned in building a high-functioning leadership partnership.
Healthcare in Canada is shifting from facility-based treatment to a more decentralized, patient-empowered model—driven by unsustainable business practices, emerging technologies, and evolving user expectations. This transformation affects everyone from patients and providers to policymakers and the nearly two million professionals in the healthcare ecosystem. In this session, participants will explore six key shifts shaping the future of healthcare and learn how dyad leaders can position their organizations to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape.
Program Faculty
Showing biography of Brian Golden .
Brian Golden is the academic director for The Rotman-OCFP Dyad Leadership Academy and is the Sandra Rotman chaired professor in health sector strategy at the Rotman School of Management, The University of Toronto and The University Health Network. He is the founding academic director of The Sandra Rotman Centre for Health Sector Strategy, a policy, research and leadership development institute. His research has informed policy around collaborative leadership, system design, funding models and primary care.
From 2005 to 2010, Golden was board chair of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). He is former board chair of Rise, a non-profit micro-finance organization providing business development funding as well as funding for individuals with mental health and addiction challenges. Among his published work are articles in The Harvard Business Review, The Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Strategic Management Journal, Healthcare Quarterly, Healthcare Papers, The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, Management Science, Clinical Oncology and Health Policy. Golden’s Healthcare Quarterly article, “Transforming Healthcare Organizations,” was that publication’s most downloaded article, with more than 200,000 downloads.
As an adviser and director of leadership development programs, Golden has worked with a variety of organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association, provincial and territorial medical associations, Canadian provincial governments, Britain’s National Health Service, several Local Integration Health Networks, and hospitals and agencies, including The Hospital for Sick Children, The University Health Network, Hamilton Health Sciences, London Health Science Centre, Sunnybrook College Health Sciences Centre, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Cancer Care Ontario, The King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Baylor Medical Center. Private-sector clients include Tieto (Finland), General Electric, and Baxter. He is the founding academic director of The Rotman School’s advanced health leadership program and the global executive MBA in health care and life sciences. Golden was the founding director of The Judy Project, Canada’s premier program for senior women leaders in the private and public sectors.
In 2016, he was made a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences — the first business school professor to be recognized by the academy for his contributions to health care and life sciences. Additional honours include Canada’s Ted Freedman Innovation in Education award and the Canadian Medical Association’s first Eureka Award for Innovation in Physician Education.
Showing biography of Zayna Khayat .
Zayna Khayat is the in-house health futurist with Deloitte Canada’s Healthcare practice. She is also adjunct faculty & executive in residence in the Health Sector Strategy stream at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where she instructs a course in healthcare innovation in the health MBA program. Zayna is Growth Advisor at Teladoc Health in Canada.
Showing biography of Julie McCarthy .
Julie McCarthy is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and HR Management at the University of Toronto Scarborough, with a cross-appointment to the Organizational Behaviour area at Rotman. Julie’s research examines strategies that employees, leaders, and organizations can use to build resilience, reduce stress, and achieve success.
Showing biography of Glen Whyte .
Glen Whyte is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at Rotman. His research interests include topics related to individual and group judgment and decision making, and managerial negotiations.
Showing biography of Tiziana Casciaro .
Tiziana Casciaro is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour and the Marcel Desautels Chair in Integrative Thinking at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. Her research on organizational networks, professional networking, power dynamics, and change leadership has appeared in top academic journals in management, psychology, and sociology, and has received scientific achievement awards from the Academy of Management.
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How to Register
Click the button below to complete the form and register for the Rotman-OCFP Family Physician – Administrative Leadership Partnership. Upon successful completion of the program, participants will receive a certificate recognizing their leadership development and their commitment to advancing primary care.
For questions or inquiries about this program, please contact Sacha Roman, Interim Manager, Professional Development.
Cancellation Policy The OCFP reserves the right to cancel sessions due to unforeseen circumstances or insufficient advance registration. In the event of a cancellation made by the OCFP, a full refund will be given to the registrants. However, the OCFP cannot accept responsibility for out-of-pocket expenses due to cancellation of a session. Cancellations made more than 15 business days prior to the date of the event will be refunded, less a 25% administration fee. No refunds will be provided after this deadline.
