BC’s top family physician of 2020

Dr Tahmeena Ali

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and the Foundation for Advancing Family Medicine (FAFM) have selected the 2020 Family Physicians of the Year (recipients of the Reg L. Perkin Awards). Each year a recipient is nominated from each province by their peers, colleagues, and the CFPC’s provincial chapters for their leadership, contributions to patient care, and commitment to family medicine teaching and research.

The 2020 Family Physician of the Year from British Columbia is Dr Tahmeena Ali, MD, CCFP, FCFP, from Surrey. Dr Ali obtained her medical degree from the University of Manitoba in her hometown of Winnipeg, completed her residency at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and has been practising family medicine for 18 years. Dr Ali works as a full-service family physician in her practice in South Surrey, and at the Vine Youth Clinic in the Fraser Health Authority. Prior to this she spent 10 years working as a family physician in the emergency department of a hospital in a rural area of northern Alberta. Today, she continues to bring health care to underserved or vulnerable populations by working as a locum twice a year in remote communities on Cortes Island in BC.

In addition to her clinical practice, Dr Ali is also a professor of family medicine at the University of British Columbia, the privacy officer of HealthVue South Surrey Medical Clinic, and a medical inspector for the Ministry of Health’s Billing Integrity Program.

Dr Ali is particularly passionate about mitigating the trauma that illness inflicts on her patients and those around them. From asthma to acquired brain injuries, maternity care to mental health, and rural to suburban settings, the multiplicity of opportunities to learn, grow, and heal is one of the things that Dr Ali enjoys most about being a family physician.

For the complete list of 2020 recipients and each recipient’s biography, visit https://fafm.cfpc.ca/fpoy-2020.