October

I lost a good friend recently. She was too young, too vibrant, too involved, too full of life to go so soon—just 51. But she died of metastatic disease. She died with hope and dignity and fighting to the end.

I practised over 20 years along conventional lines with primary obstetrics care, hospital care including serving orphaned patients on rota for what was then called “doctor of the day,” and so forth. I now serve my patients out of a reputable walk-in organization and see more intimately what happens here. Front-line medicine is clearly going through much upheaval despite the attempts of the usual organizations trying to revive primary family practice, with government incentives and multilevel calls for action.

A cardinal feature of influenza illness is its short incubation and sudden onset. For seasonal influenza viruses, the incubation period is generally estimated to be 1- to 4-days.[1] The 2009 swine-origin pandemic A/H1N1 (pH1N1) virus is considered a novel pathogen, but it is nevertheless an influenza virus and anticipated to share consistent epidemiologic characteristics.

References

In my September 2009 article (BCMJ 2009;51[7]:308) I discussed some aspects of injury claims, including:
• ICBC accident benefits available as part of the basic vehicle insurance regardless of who is at- fault for the accident.
• Settlements obtained by negotiation or litigation of the at-fault party under tort law.

This article will pursue the claims perspective a bit further.

The General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) tabled its seventh annual report with the Ministry of Health Services (MOHS) last month, highlighting many successes in its continued efforts to support full-service family practice in BC. Since its inception in 2002, the joint BCMA-MOHS committee, established with the input of 1000 GPs across the province, has allocated $452 million on programs for physicians.