2024

The wife, children, and grandchildren of Dr Joseph Walker (Nanoose Bay, BC) are heartbroken to announce his death at home on 22 August 2024, after a heroic struggle with metastatic melanoma.

The BC Ministry of Health has committed to digitizing the health care system. In 2016, the Island Health Authority pioneered Cerner at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (NRGH), transitioning from paper-based to digital systems, where clinicians could enter electronic orders and notes accessible across different settings.[1] Starting in 2018, Cerner was rolled out in phases in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Provincial Health Service Authority, and Meditech Expanse adoption continued in the Fraser Health Authority and Interior Health Authority.

Doctors of BC shares Dr Hsiang’s concerns about the government’s lack of appropriate consultation when developing the Health Professions and Occupations Act. Doctors of BC has been, and continues to be, active in amplifying the physician voice and advocating for the concerns physicians are expressing in respect of this important and impactful new legislation.

The most important piece of legislation in the last 30 years to affect all health professionals was quietly passed by the government in November 2022.

We thank Dr Lenskyj for his thoughtful comments. The evaluation of emergency department patients with chest pain, while improving over the past 2 decades,[1] still has few tools to risk stratify patients who do not have an acute coronary syndrome but may require further assessment. The Vancouver Chest Pain Rule (VCPR) is an adjunctive tool that permits clinicians to safely discharge a greater number of low-risk patients, while preserving scarce hospital beds for those at higher risk.