Fearless, community-building storytelling
Dr. Melissa Yuan-Innes has earned this year’s Top Blogger Award at the Medical Post Awards for her contributions to physician storytelling and thought leadership in Canada. This award is not selected by judges but rather based on high reader engagement.
An emergency physician and writer based in eastern Ontario, she has built a career out of transforming stress and even insults into powerful, human-centred stories.
Dr. Yuan-Innes is widely known to Medical Post readers from her periodic blog. One column she wrote, The Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World, was born from a patient’s insult that evolved into a bestselling book and stage play. Under the pen name Melissa Yi, she also created Dr. Hope Sze, a crime-solving, cancer-fighting physician protagonist who mirrors the grit and curiosity of her creator. Her fiction spans genres—from award-winning speculative fiction to romance—guided by her mantra: why choose?
Asked about the importance of recognition in a healthcare system struggling with burnout, Dr. Yuan-Innes said acknowledgment from peers can help keep clinicians afloat. “When you’re pushed to the point that you feel like it’s not worth it anymore . . . recognition is one of the only ways we have to keep going,” she said. Physicians can’t control funding, politics or bureaucracy, she added, “but we can recognize each other.” Celebrating each other’s efforts—large or small—can help doctors continue day by day.
Yuan-Innes believes the Medical Post Awards contribute to this sense of collective uplift. “They bring us together, and that’s really what community is about,” she said.
Even after years in emergency medicine, she still draws deeply on the relationships that brought her into the profession. Patients, she said, often understand how difficult the work is and show gratitude; colleagues—smart, compassionate, wickedly funny—provide day-to-day sustenance.
“I wanted to always learn, and to meet really cool people, and that’s what I feel I’ve done,” she said. “It’s been such a wonderful way to meet very smart, very compassionate, just really cool folk.”
Medical Post Awards
The Medical Post Awards recognize Canadian doctors and are selected by panels of physician juries. Coverage of this year’s recipients is here: The 2025 Medical Post Awards winners.
Women in leadership
Dr. Yuan-Innes has written about barriers to physician leadership, particularly for women. Leadership is glamourized, she noted, but in practice “it’s actually tough.” Some people don’t want to be led; the work is emotionally taxing; and doctors often aren’t paid for leadership roles.
“For women, they’ll just be like, ‘Hey, do you want a pay cut?’” she said. To navigate that reality, she has found her own route—continuing to choose the work that inspires her and earning income in varied ways so she can afford to take on leadership roles when they matter.
For her, leading change through writing is one of the most meaningful—and joyful—paths. “If I could just lead change by typing my words, that’s actually one of the happiest ways for me to do it,” she said. Her Medical Post columns often spark reflection or debate, questioning “what we’re being brainwashed about.”
Her honest writing has included recent reflections on identity and queerness. She admitted feeling apprehensive about potential backlash. “I understood why people stay closeted,” she said. But she was surprised and moved by the supportive response.
She credits the Medical Post platform—it’s a closed community—with making vulnerability feel safer. “You have to register to comment, so that keeps away enough of the trolls,” she said. Over time, she has also “trained” her readers, just as she once did her clinic patients: most commenters are thoughtful.
And when discussions heat up, there’s always another coping tool: stepping away. “The nice thing about writing is you can always hide from the comments if you need to for your mental health.”
As public discourse gets louder and more polarized, she believes clinicians will increasingly need to build these skills.
Dr. Yuan-Innes lives in eastern Ontario with her family. Readers can find her work at melissayuaninnes.com or via linktr.ee/melissayi.