October

BCMA Silver Medal of Service
BCMA members are encouraged to nominate physicians or laypersons for the BCMA Silver Medal of Service award. The medal will be presented at the BCMA’s Annual General Meeting in June 2011. 

Physician nominees must have 25 years of membership in good standing in the BCMA, the CMA, and the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. Nonmedical candidates may be laypersons of Canadian or foreign citizenship. To be eligible for the award, nominees must meet at least one of the following criteria:

I agree with the concern about anti­biotic use in our livestock ­ex­pressed in Dr Bill Mackie’s COHP column [BCMJ 2010;52:309].

In addition to the problem of antibiotic-resistant organisms, there is a potential of sensitization from the residual antibiotics in the livestock resulting in subsequent antibiotic allergy in patients. 

A doctor who never examines his or her patients is doing a poor job. The Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles (OSMV) tests young drivers repeatedly. The OSMV does not test older drivers. Dr Jensen wrote, “The physician has no authority to have the driver’s licence cancelled. The decision to… deny a licence to operate a motor vehicle rests solely with OSMV” [“Driver assessment and the duty to report.” BCMJ 2010;52:122].

The Journal’s feature on the An­nual General Meeting [BCMJ 2010;52:290-293] hinted at prob­lems that warrant expansion.

While the segue to Zafar Essak and Caroline Wang bears no comment, to write that their business took “a lot of time” risks losing the merit of the business inside its treatment. Highly signifi­cant to my view were repeat­ed ad homi­nem objections levied by one director at Dr Essak. Those objections, later built upon by other directors, were countered by Past President John Turner.

One hears frequently through the press about nosocomial (hospital) or iatrogenic (doctor-induced) diseases these days. I find this frustrating because when I entered medicine in 1946 the antibiotic era was just beginning and we were still indoctrinated in the older measures for disease control. One wonders if some may have been abandoned too quickly.