Advocating for patients in obesity care with Dr. Ian Patton
Scale Up Your Practice by Obesity CanadaShow Notes
🎙️ This episode is sponsored. Obesity Canada received an unrestricted educational grant from Eli Lilly Canada to produce this episode. 🎙️
Access to obesity treatment in Canada can feel like a maze—for both patients and healthcare professionals.
In this episode of Scale Up Your Practice, we sit down with Dr. Ian Patton, Obesity Canada’s Director of Advocacy and Public Engagement, to talk about the barriers people face in accessing obesity care—and how clinicians and patients can work together to change that.
From the everyday challenges of navigating authorizations and waitlists to the bigger system-level barriers, Ian shares practical strategies clinicians can use to support patients within the realities of our current healthcare system—while working toward a more equitable one.
In this episode: Why access to evidence-based obesity care remains inconsistent across Canada
How delays, denials, and system barriers affect patient motivation and health
Practical steps clinicians can take to reduce friction and improve efficiency
The power of communication, empathy, and trust in patient advocacy
How peer support and communities like OC Connect empower patients
What needs to change at a system level to make equitable care possible
Additional resources:
OC Connect patient community:https://utm.guru/ujesc
Private insurance appeal letter: https://utm.guru/ujesd
Workplace & employer resources: https://utm.guru/ujese
Tell your government representative to recognize obesity as a chronic disease: https://utm.guru/ujesf
The Patient-Physician Partnership in Advocacy: https://utm.guru/ujesg
Don’t miss the Canadian Obesity Summit 2026
Obesity Canada’s flagship scientific congress returns March 25–29, 2026, in Montréal, Québec. It’s where Canada’s obesity community—researchers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and lived experience advocates—comes together to share the latest science and advance care.
✨ Early bird registration is open through November 30, 2025.Register today: https://utm.guru/ujesh
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Thanks for tuning in—and stay with us as we continue to scale up your practice.
More from Scale Up Your Practice by Obesity Canada
🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada
What happens when healthcare professionals know what evidence-informed obesity care should look like, but the system makes that care difficult to deliver? Ian Patton and Jennifer Brown join us on the podcast to unpack findings from The State of Obesity Care in Canada report and connect them to what clinicians and patients experience every day: limited referral pathways, uneven treatment coverage, gaps in psychological support, inconsistent access to metabolic bariatric surgery and the effects of weight bias at the system level.
🎙️This episode is sponsored by an unrestricted education grant from Eli Lilly Canada
🎙️This episode was made possible through the partnership between Obesity Canada and Boehringer Ingelheim in support of the Global Patient Charter Framework initiative.
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