July

Protecting the blood supply from West Nile virus—BC update, 2006

Dr David A. Clarke, longest-serving medical health officer of the South Okanagan Health Unit (SOHU)—1950 to 1984—passed away peacefully on 18 February 2006 at Westside Care Centre in Kelowna.

Born in Princeton, BC, and raised in Trail, Jack and his younger brother, Gordon, agreed with their Glaswegian parents that they should try to avoid a life in the mines or the smelter and to go to university instead. Jack, having played for the Trail Smoke Eaters as a junior, was on the UBC hockey team after starting his studies there. Quickly realizing that he wasn’t cut out for professional hockey, he concentrated on the study of medicine and was in the third graduating class of the UBC Faculty of Medicine, being licensed to practise in 1957.

At the time of this writing I am not yet your president, but will become the BCMA president on 10 June 2006. At the moment I am still living a relatively normal life, but with each passing day the smile on Dr Michael Golbey’s face gets wider, and I realize that my days of calm are numbered.

Why would anyone want to be the president of this organization? Well, I can tell you why I want to do it. Quite simply: I want to make a difference. Recently, the 3-year-old son of colleagues was asked, “What do your mom and dad do?” He answered, “They help to make the people feel better.”

WorkSafeBC is committed to providing quality medical care and rehabilitation to injured workers. Health care quality improvement represents a revolutionary shift in medical thinking for all clinicians, and WorkSafeBC strives to participate in that discussion and process.