October

“Now I don’t want to rain on this parade, but most of the GPs in my community are working full out and don’t have any room for extra patients. It’s not as if a bunch of family physicians are sitting around killing time and now that these financial incentives have been announced they are going to cancel their afternoon golf and work harder.” [“A GP for Me”: Will it work? BCMJ 2013;55:133.]

I was reminded about gratitude lately during a conversation with a patient.

“Congrats, Bob, on making it to 80. There aren’t too many 1933 models still out there.”

“Thanks Doc, but I don’t know why I’m still around. I can’t do the things I want and had to give my motor home to my son as I don’t feel safe driving it anymore.”

“But Bob, you can still drive your car, you live in your own home and you are independent. Most of all you can still hear the birds sing and feel the sun on your face.”

“Yeah, but I’ll probably get a sunburn.”

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, 
no sane individual has ever given his assent. —Aldous Huxley

For many of our professional associations, health care transformation translates into more government dependency, as they seek ever more resources from taxation. For most physicians, I believe the opposite is true. The emphasis (for example at the last CMA General Council) on seeking equality, or equity, raises the question: what do the terms really mean?

For the senior driver, the 80th birthday represents an arbitrary line in the sand. At this point, the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles (OSMV) steps into a senior’s life and requests a medical exam. From this point forward, a Driver’s Medical Exam Report must be completed every 2 years and sent to the OSMV to confirm the senior’s fitness to maintain a driver’s licence. If a family physician isn’t available to perform the examination, a walk-in clinic physician can do so.

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The influenza season is almost upon us, and this fall the BC publicly funded influenza immunization program will be incorporating one new influenza vaccine into the mix: the live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) called FluMist. In BC, this live attenuated vaccine is recommended for children aged 2 to 17 years. 

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References