2016 Awards of Excellence in Rural Medicine

Awards of Excellence in Rural Medicine – Community Excellence

Each year, at the Rural Emergency Continuum of Care (RECC) conference, the good work of BC’s rural physicians is honoured through the Awards of Excellence in Rural Medicine.

The criterion for the award changes each year. In 2014, RCCbc and Northern Health recognized physicians who are strong mentors, and three (3) doctors for a lifetime of achievement and service. In 2015, RCCbc, Northern Health, and UNBC recognized physicians who are inspirational leaders to their colleagues and communities.

This year, the theme of the Awards of Excellence in Rural Medicine will focus on community excellence. For the first time, RCCbc is recognizing the work of rural community teams as well as individual physicians.

Individual Physicians – doctors whose contributions greatly elevate the health and well-being of the community both individually and as a whole.

Sustained Community – a rural team whose excellent work has sustained the health and well-being of the community over many years.

Resilient Community – a rural team whose excellent work has substantively improved the health and well-being of the community in the face of challenging situations.

RCCbc is proud to acknowledge the following five recipients of the 2016 Award of Excellence in Rural Medicine for community excellence. Please join us in celebrating the achievements of these fine rural healthcare practitioners!

Dr. Jel Coward

Jel Coward has lived and worked as a rural physician in Pemberton, BC, since 2002. Previously, he worked in several rural areas of the UK before coming to Canada to join his partner, also a rural physician, Rebecca Lindley.

With Rebecca, they have been part of sustainable group practice providing full-service family practice and emergency medicine to the diverse populations served by Pemberton Health Centre over the last 15 years. This has included fly-in visits to three isolated communities on a weekly basis. He is a staunch advocate for disadvantaged peoples.

Jel is an active member of Pemberton Search and Rescue and works with ski patrol at Whistler-Blackcomb. He is a founding member of the Canadian Society of Mountain Medicine, helping to shape and deliver the Canadian ‘Diploma in Mountain Medicine.’ Jel developed the team that provides the Wilderness Medicine Course at the annual RECC conference.

Jel has long term involvement supporting open-source software in medical practice and education, with a focus on increasing accessibility and community collaboration.

Jel and Rebecca are co-architects and directors of The CARE Course, an award-winning interprofessional, ‘in-community, in-team’ emergency medicine course for rural health care providers. The program focuses on delivering high quality education within an ethos of strengthening rural communities.

Jel is very honoured and humbled to be the recipient of this award.

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Dr. Norm Lea

An Alberta boy initially, Norm grew up overseas in North Africa and England as an oil brat before returning to Calgary to finish off his high school education. His first year of university was on a Canadian National Team soccer scholarship at SFU. Realizing that soccer was not likely to pay the bills, he returned to the University of Calgary for both undergraduate schooling and medical school, continuing to play soccer and captain the University of Calgary Dinosaur Men’s Team.

Two years of residency at the Holy Cross Hospital prepared this city boy for a life in rural practice. Norm went to Nakusp for only one year in 1988 and 28 years later he’s still there! He really enjoys rural medicine and all it has to offer, including all of its challenges.

Nakusp is a beautiful town and is a tremendous place to live and work with recreation of all types only minutes from his door. He enjoys sports and outdoor activities of all kinds and stays active with those when not busy in the clinic and hospital. Truly honored by the award, Norm thanks RCCbc for the recognition.

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Dr. David May

David is a full service family doc working in Powell River, BC for the last twenty five years. He also works as an anesthetist and has a consulting practice in palliative care and chronic pain. He was a member of the PSP chronic pain planning committee and is a member of the Doctors of BC palliative care committee. He is a board director of the Powell River Division of Family Practice and physician lead on the Shared Care Committee Palliative Care initiative. David is married with three kids and all of his family are experts at keeping his ego in check!

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Waneta Primary Care Clinic

Located in Trail, BC, WPCC services 2,200 patients and provides full service family practice in a collaborative and teaching setting.

Julie George and Tracey Grayson: Julie and Tracey are Medical Office Assistants (MOAs) with advanced skills. They provide administrative support and clinical services including triage, BPs, immunizations, ECGs, and ear irrigation. They are skilled in advanced access and flow issues and they train our patients in the use of the Patient Portal. They are the core of the team as the first point of contact for patient care.

Chelsea Van Vliet, NP: Chelsea is the newest addition to the team. She is a full service primary care Nurse Practitioner. Chelsea brings a fresh energy to the team and she practices full scope family medicine.

Lori Verigin, NP: Lori is an experienced full service primary care Nurse Practitioner. Lori has been with WPCC since its inception in 2006. She has served as a strong leader at the clinic, spearheading programs including Advanced Access, EMR utilization, EMR Patient Portal, and Patient Recalls. One of her recent projects includes a polypharmacy recall of all of the clinic patients over the age of 70 on five or more medications. Clinically, she has areas of interest in women’s health issues and chronic disease management in addition to her full scope practice in family medicine. Lori has recently applied to KBRH to provide inpatient services to our patients.

Blair Stanley, MD: Blair is a family doctor with over 22 years of clinical experience in many areas. Blair practices full service family medicine. His special areas of interest include office-based surgical procedures, hospitalist medicine, and rural ER medicine. Blair is also developing an interest in GP Psychotherapy. He is passionate and grateful for his experience in a team based setting. He marvels at the efficiency and competency and fun that manifests as collaborative practice.

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Cascade Medical Centre and Princeton General Hospital

The Princeton Health Care Team is best described as a community of professionals working collaboratively to serve the needs of Princeton and Area residents. This community consists of the approximately 125 health care professionals that work at Cascade Medical Clinic and Princeton General Hospital and extends far beyond to include all the caring organizations in our community that dedicate themselves to the service of others.

Although the transition from the survival stage to our present stable situation involved a team effort, credit is given to deserving individuals who provided the resilience and leadership needed to guide the team through the most difficult months. They include the following from Cascade Clinic: Dr. Ella Monro; Dr. Colleen Black; NP Tanya Ter Keurs; Dr. Tim Van Der Heide, Dr. Mahrous Mousa, MOA office manager Rachelle Sanderson, Michelle Leduc and Linda Flood. From Princeton Hospital: Susan M. Brown, Health Service Administrator HCIS; Cherie Whittaker, Nursing Manager HCIS; Dorothy Westfall, RN PCC; Erin Traverse, RN PCC. Nursing staff: Cathy MacDonald, Catherine Alexander, Michael Anne Miller, Barb Nyman, Colleen Lueke, Kathleen Bedard, Michelle Nylund, Trina Adams, Sarah Baines, Jessica Miyasaki. Allied Staff: Gail Debnam, Sharon Elko, Chris McMahon, Raeleen Kuhn, Steve Ball and Darla Biagioni, Sean Walsh.

Due to the tireless efforts of the entire team at Cascade Medical and Princeton General Hospital, our community now enjoys a much improved and more stable health care model. Throughout the past four years, our health care team remained resolute in their commitment to provide the best possible service to

our community and at the same time initiated many new programs aimed at improving access to services for all Princeton and Area residents with help from South Okanagan Similkameen Division of Family Practice’s Access to Specialists Project (funded by Shared Care), and Telehealth.

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The Rural Coordination Centre of BC gratefully acknowledges the support of the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues (JSC) for the Awards of Excellence in

Rural Medicine, and for the Rural Emergency Continuum of Care (RECC) medical conference