Pacific Medical Law

A founding member of BILA

Law, Justice And Compassion | Call Today

1-604-685-2361

Call
Contact
Blog

Admin

How to find a Family Physician and get the most out of your Doctor-Patient Relationship

By

Research shows that primary healthcare systems focused on continuous doctor-patient relationships are associated with better health outcomes. A patient who develops and maintains an ongoing relationship with a family doctor is more likely to benefit from better care because the physician becomes familiar with the patient’s background and medical history. This continuous relationship fosters greater trust and better communication, leading to better management of health risks and improved preventative care; and when a serious medical issue does occur, a family doctor is better able to either diagnose the problem or provide a timely referral to a specialist. Below are some tips on finding a physician if you do not already have one and developing and maintaining a successful physician-patient relationship.

Finding a physician

It is estimated that over 175,000 people in British Columbia do not have a family physician. The first step to finding a doctor is to ask friends and family for their recommendations and to be referred into the doctor’s practice through them. If this does not work, the next step is to check with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. To do that, go to their website and click on “Find a Physician”. This will direct you to a page where you can customize search criteria, such as accepting new patients, geographic area, and gender. Once you have narrowed down some options for a possible match, it is a great idea to arrange for an appointment and see the physician a couple of times before finalizing your decision. The first few appointments will give you an idea of how comfortable you are with the way the physician runs his or her practice. Do the hours of operation fit your schedule? Is there a level of rapport and trust you feel with the doctor’s demeanor and professionalism?

Maintaining a great doctor-patient relationship

When you have found a family doctor, he or she will feel responsible for your care and will expect some commitments from you. These include seeing them first for any health concerns, letting them know if you received care anywhere else, and communicating openly about your symptoms. To get the most out of your patient-doctor relationship, follow these tips provided by the College of Family Physicians of BC:

  • Explain the reason for your visit when you book your appointment with the receptionist. This will allow him or her to allocate the appropriate amount of time for your visit.
  • Always prepare for your appointment to ensure that your time is productive and you get the most out of your visit. Jot down questions or observations about your symptoms, and take a list of medications you are on or treatment you have already received.
  • Talk openly to your doctor. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing to talk about some intimate health concerns, but remember that anything you discuss is confidential and your doctor is there to help you.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Make sure you fully understand what the doctor is telling you and make sure to clarify any confusion. It is also good to ask about what to expect next in your care.
  • And Follow-up. It is generally a good idea to follow up on the tests or treatment that your doctor orders. One way to do this is to access your lab results electronically on www.myehealth.ca. The registration is free but you do have to meet certain criteria including having had labwork done within 30 days prior to registration. Once you are set up, you can view your lab results online.

Having a family physician with whom you can maintain a trusting, open relationship with shared responsibilities can be central to your health. For more resources, please access the College of Physicians and Surgeons, myehealth.ca, and the College of Family Physicians of BC.

*image via www.whattoexpect.com

BC Brain Injury Association – Improving the lives of people living with brain injuries

By

It is estimated that 50,000 Canadians suffer a traumatic brain injury each year – and the majority of these are young adults.

At Pacific Medical Law, we can assist people who have suffered as a result of a delayed diagnosis of a traumatic brain injury or a failure by a physician or other health care professional to diagnose an underlying medical condition such as an impending stroke.

Traumatic brain injury is the leading killer and disabler of Canadians under 40 years of age. Thanks to medical advances many people who would once have died from their injuries are able to survive; however, these individuals will require lifelong care because of the cognitive impairments and emotional effects of their injuries.

The BC Brain Injury Association (BCBIA) is a non-profit organization established in 1982 to serve the interests of people living with acquired brain injuries. Founded on the belief that every person with an acquired brain injury has the right to be considered as a full participating and impactful member of society, BCBIA’s mission is to be a leader in improving the lives of people who live with acquired brain injury in BC. Brainstreams.ca, the organization’s official website, provides continual access to information and support resources for the thousands of individuals in BC and beyond who experience brain injury each year. Visitors can also find news on medical breakthroughs, inspirational stories from survivors of brain injury, and upcoming events in the community.

For those interested in supporting this important cause, the BCBIA hosts an annual Cocktail Gala to help improve the lives of people living with acquired brain injuries by raising funds and awareness. This year’s Gala will take place on Thursday, February 5, 2015, and will feature mental health advocate Margaret Trudeau and brain injury awareness advocate Ellie Ennis as guest speakers. Tickets and more information are available at brainstreams.ca.

The Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities

By

I believe every person living with a disability should have the opportunity to reach their full potential, and that finding meaningful employment is an important part of that goal. The unemployment rate amongst disabled people, however, remains staggeringly high. Giving people living with disabilities the opportunity to prove their potential will slowly erode misconceptions and replace them with a recognition of the talent and commitment disabled people have to offer to the workplace. This is precisely what Mark Wafer has done.

Mark is a successful business person and advocate for people living with disabilities. Born deaf, Mark quickly learned first hand the challenges of holding down a job when you have a disability – so he became an entrepreneur. Today Mark owns and operates seven Tim Horton’s franchises. He purchased his first Tim Horton’s franchise 20 years ago. Five years later he advertised an opening for a new dining room attendant and Clint, a young man with Downs Syndrome, walked in and applied for the job. At that moment, Mark made the decision to give Clint a chance, knowing that unfortunately most business owners would not. He hired Clint and engaged a local community organization to train him to give him the best chance to succeed. Not only did Clint meet the job expectations, he exceeded them, quickly becoming Mark’s best employee. Since then Mark has hired over 100 employees with disabilities – both cognitive and physical. To Mark, hiring people with disabilities simply makes good business sense.

Why is the unemployment rate for disabled people so high?

If it makes such good business sense to hire people with a disability, why does the unemployment rate for disabled people remain so high? As Mark explains, it is simply fear, rooted in misconceptions about the potential that lies within disabled people to make meaningful contributions in the workplace. Specifically, employers have a misconception that hiring disabled people will result in more time off, more training, safety concerns, and higher employee turnover. But in Mark’s experience, the opposite is true. Employee turnover is the best example of why hiring disabled people makes good business sense. While his competitors have annual turnover rates of up to 100%, Mark boasts an impressively low turnover rate of 38%. The average tenure of an employee who has a disability is seven years, as compared to the 1.3 year average tenure of his non-disabled employees.

In addition to the reliability and dedication his disabled employees display, there are further benefits to including people with a disability in the workplace. Mark states, “people tell me they come to my business because we hire real people who make up the fabric of our community”, explaining that 53% of us have someone close to us with a disability.

Mark knows there is a compelling business case for hiring people living with disabilities. Let’s share this important message to help break down misconceptions about the value people with disabilities have to offer in the workplace, and replace fear with hope.

*image via blog.aarp.org

Hospital Shifts and Medical Mistakes

By

Without a doubt, the best way of dealing with hospital errors is to prevent them from happening in the first place. In a recent on-line Globe and Mail article, Attempt to shorten shifts for doctors causing unintended consequences, correspondent Lee Marshall identified a new potential source of medical errors. According to Ms. Marshall, this new problem grew out of the well-intended need to shorten the ridiculously long shifts that many hospital workers, principally medical residents, traditionally have had to tolerate. In a recent survey of their members conducted by The Canadian Association of Internes and Residents, it was reported that their members worked an average of 62.6 hours per week, and slept an average of 3.2 hours per day while on call. The worst case seems to be in the specialty in which one might expect a need for the greatest acuity, surgical residents, who reported working slightly more than 75 hours per week and an average of 20.2 consecutive in-house duty hours.

Anyone who has endured the rigours of medical residency will ask, “What’s wrong with that?” The answer can be found in a 1997 research paper titled, Fatigue, alcohol and performance impairment, by Drew Dawson and Kathryn Reid, published in Nature: Weekly International Journal of Science. In that paper the authors noted that,

“. . . after 17 hours of sustained wakefulness cognitive psychomotor performance decreased to a level equivalent to the performance impairment observed at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. . . . After 24 hours of sustained wakefulness cognitive psychomotor performance decreased to a level equivalent to the performance deficit observed at a blood alcohol concentration of roughly 0.10%.”

Patient errors due to Staff turnover

In British Columbia, if car drivers are found to have blood alcohol concentrations of .05% they can be served with an immediate roadside prohibition and have their cars impounded. Behavioural characteristics associated with blood alcohol concentrations between .06% and .10% include: impaired judgment, impaired coordination, diminished of sense of hearing and vision, and slowed mental processing. One can’t help but wonder how a person would feel about being operated on by a physician who displays these behaviours.

In her article Ms. Marshall points out that the problems associated with working very long hours has been understood for years and that as a result many hospitals have made efforts to regulate the maximum permissible hours of work. She notes that in 2011 the Province of Quebec mandated the maximum continuous hours of work for medical residents to be not greater than 16 hours per day. Whereas intuitively one might expect that these actions ought to result in fewer medical errors, the article suggests that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact Ms. Marshall cites researchers who claim that the moves to regulate shorter shifts have made the situation worse, not better.

The culprit here is poor documentation and communication during the process of handing over patient care from an outgoing hospital shift to their incoming colleagues. In the simplest terms, critical patient information is missing or inaccurate and poorly documented when it exists. The article suggests that if poor patient handover practices are the source of many medical errors then the more often shifts change, the greater the risk of those medical errors. Efforts to impose shorter hours of work have resulted in the need to turn over staff more frequently resulting in more patient hand-overs and a greater incidence of errors being made.

In our experience, this sort of problem is not uncommon. Here’s a scenario that combines a number of issues we commonly see:

A 50 year old man attended the emergency room of a small community hospital with severe back pain that had been getting worse over the past week. He had not been able to sleep and was having chills. His back pain extended to the rib area. He was in so much pain he could not lay still for assessments. He was admitted to the hospital, and over the first 4 days was seen by a different doctor every day. His situation worsened and over the following days the nurses noted that he was having difficulty urinating and was developing leg weakness and numbness. After suffering this way for 7 days he finally had an MRI which showed a mass on his spine; he was diagnosed with a spinal epidural abscess which required immediate surgical decompression and long-term antibiotic therapy. As a result of his spinal epidural abscess he suffered a severe spinal cord injury and is now paraplegic.

The question is; did the frequent hand-overs between four different doctors over four days cause a lack of continuity which negatively impacted this patient’s ability to get a timely diagnosis and treatment?

Pacific Medical Law supports One to One: A Children’s Literacy Program

By

On May 29, 2014 a Pacific Medical Law team participated in the One to One Spelling Bee, raising funds to help hundreds of struggling students learn literacy skills to last a lifetime.

The funds will be used to purchase books and supplies for the 60 schools in the One to One Literacy Program, and to provide training and support for the 300 tutors who volunteer 24,000 hours annually to help over 800 children develop their literacy skills.

We believe that by joining together and getting involved in our community, we can make a meaningful difference in the lives of children who need our support.

How Can We Help You?

Contact Us