2002

Recently the BCMA distributed a pamphlet “Alternative & Complementary Therapies,” meant as a patients’ guide, to doctors all over BC. It is virtually unchanged from the draft to which, over a year and a half ago, the Association of Complementary Physicians of BC (ACPBC) and Canadian Complementary Medical Association () objected, because of its narrow and negative view on complementary medicine in general. Further, how helpful is it for doctors to be asked about complementary therapies of which many of them know next to nothing?

Medicine is such an intense occupation that often I find that my body has made the transition from work to home faster than my brain. Such a situation occurred recently: I was reading some Christmas cards and the phrase “and the best in ’02” triggered a schizoid “what has oxygen to do with Christmas?” I enjoyed a good chuckle at my own expense and then began to think that maybe it’s time that we had a Year of the Lungs. What better year than ’02?

Watching the dog and pony show at the recent first minister’s meeting on health care here in Vancouver was more entertaining than anything in recent memory, but I’m not quite sure who between Ralph Klein and Gordon Campbell was the dog and who was the pony. Mike Harris, who has kind of a hang dog look whenever he is interviewed, wanted to be seen as a player, but instead looked lost as he scrambled to keep up with the far western duo.

Ten years ago, when I first investigated resources for supporting addiction medicine in British Columbia, the provincial government library, then in the Ministry of Labour, was in boxes in a basement in Victoria. As journal issues were received, they were put in a box and, when the box was full, it was taken to the basement. Dedicated staff, who had followed the library from its home in the Alcohol and Drug Commission, did actually retrieve items occasionally. This library has since been passed from ministry to ministry.

Introduction