Clinic / Office Policies

This is an academic facility. All doctors ( most of whom have university teaching appointments) are affiliated with St. Paul's Hospital, downtown, and/or Vancouver General Hospital. You will from time to time have a family practice resident see you under supervision. They are recently graduated doctors, qualified to diagnose and treat.

We primarily see patients by as walk-in, but will also schedule appointments.

General medical exams  are often not covered by your provincial health plan, unless for management of chronic illness, or following the elderly. Every new patient qualifies for one full examination however as a baseline.  Thereafter please speak to your physician about the frequency of exams.  This does not apply to women for examinations  related to Pap tests.

This is a full service facility. We follow patients longitudionally,  refer when necessary, provide after hours coverage and arrange hospitalization when necessary. We perform minor surgery on site, and treat a variety of minor trauma.  We provide most immunizations, do pregnancy tests, urinalyses and peak flow (lung) assessments on site. There is a complete lab and Xray facility in close proximity to the clinic.

Referrals are at the discretion of the doctor:  Family doctors are gatekeepers for primary health, and against spurious requests for specialist consultation.  We only refer to specialists when necessary, and often only after appropriate baseline tests are completed, and a formal referral letter is sent.

Associations: We are associated with the Urban Doctor’s Network (www.urbandoc.net); a group of trusted, similar full-service family physicians, that agree to cover for each other in the event that your doctor is not available.  Relevant health  information from your chart is thereby shared, only on a "need to know for diagnosis and treatment "basis, and a copy of the visit to another doctor in the network is sent back to us.

Confidentiality:  Your medical record is confidential to you and your family physician. We adhere to Guidelines as set out by the British Columbia  FOIPPA ( Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) . Except in the case of "need to know" by another physician providing direct, temporary care  (see "Associations" above)You must provide written, witnessed authorization  for release of your medical record to a third party. Please realise however, that even when we send a copy of your file to another party or doctor we must still retain your file for legal purposes for 7 years, and hence charge patients a nominal fee for copying and chart retention should you change doctors.