Jean Woodsworth was a significant person in the 30-year history of Canadian Pensioners Concerned. Much of her life was spent working to build community and end the social injustice that so harmed the lives of people of all ages from the very young to the very old. She was the president of Ontario Division and then became the national president of One Voice - a coalition of seniors from across the country united in the struggle to build a better country for all. Jean, who never lost her vision for what was needed to make Canada better, and her life long commitment to community, was an inspiration for many an activist.

This year CPC has chosen Dr. Mark Nowaczynski as the recipient of the Jean Woodsworth Award. I have known Mark for some time as I became his patient shortly after he began to practice family medicine in Toronto in 1992.

From the very beginning he involved himself in the home-based care of frail seniors and this gradu-ally grew into his primary clinical interest. In July 2007 he closed his family practice in order to spend all of his clinical time outside of the office setting caring for frail house-bound seniors.

In 1998 he began to photograph this hidden and vulnerable population in order to advocate for change. This ongoing photo-documentary project has been profiled in national print, radio, and tele-vision media and is the subject of the Gemini Award-winning National Film Board of Canada documentary House Calls.

Working with a group of community partners, he is part of an interdisciplinary community-based team that promotes aging in place, and improves the health and quality of life of seniors by providing ongo-ing integrated home-based care. He is a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. In 2005 the Faculty of Medicine at the University Toronto recognized Dr. Nowaczynski with the Educational Excellence for Community Care Award and in 2007 he was a recipient of an Award of Excellence of the Ontario College of Family Physicians "in recognition of his commitment to providing home-based care in frail elderly patients and his advocacy for the role that family doctors play in home care". He is actively involved in teaching, training, research, and advocacy.

It is an honour to present Dr. Mark Nowaczynski with the Jean Woodsworth Award for his role as an advocate for geriatric home-based primary care.

Howard Watson