jjablkowski's blog

On 8 March 2018, International Women’s Day, you would not expect to read a blog post focused on a male caregiver, but please hear me out. 

Many family physicians have started adding office-based cosmetic procedures to their daily practice.[1] Several factors have led to a high demand for these additional services, including convenience for patients (wanting to access multiple ancillary services from one location), patients’ preference to have their family physician perform these procedure, physicians’ desire for variety in their daily practice, expanded revenue, and physicians’ enjoyment from the hands-on nature of treatments.[1,2] Some of these services include botulinum toxin injections, d

“My life is different from most people’s.”

That’s what Mandie, a young mother of three in Kelowna, says about her round-the-clock role as a caregiver. Life is different for Mandie because her middle child, Moses, has both autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy. Her youngest, Rose, has cerebral palsy. The care of her special-needs children is all-consuming, so there isn’t much time left to focus on Joey, her eldest and only healthy child.

“You can only offer your most,” says Mandie. “You can’t offer more than your most.”

The Vancouver Island Regional Recruitment and Retention Working Group was born from a collective will to improve how we welcome and support physicians interested in working on Vancouver Island. We recognized that there was potential for competition between communities, but also that every community on the Island needs physicians, and that each has unique benefits to offer.

In July 1956 I was the 18th doctor who entered medical practice on the North Shore of Vancouver. My office was located on Lonsdale Avenue, close to 14th street. I was the junior partner of Dr C.G. McNeil, one of the North Shore’s medical pioneers. We were centrally located and many of our patients could walk to our office; parking a car was also not an issue. I could walk to the North Vancouver General Hospital, built in 1922, with its 120 beds and the head nurse still living in the hospital. I could even walk to the office from our house, if I needed to.