I hope you are all having a good summer in this wonderful province where we live and work. I feel fortunate to be a family physician at this time and in this place and I hope you do also. I wanted to let you know of some current items of interest for the members of our college.
1. Pre-registration for Family Medicine Forum, to be held in Vancouver October 14th to 16th at the new convention center, is now available. You should also have received a preliminary program in the mail. There are excellent CME opportunities planned including keynote addresses by Dr. Jack Taunton, Dr. Robert Thirsk and greetings from the BC Minister of Health Mr. Kevin Falcon. In June the Minister promised on behalf of our government that all residents of BC would have a family physician by the year 2015. Your college supports this goal and hopes to soon meet with the minister to represent our position.
2. During FMF the Reg L. Perkin award for Family Physician of the Year for BC will be announced. One evening will celebrate convocation for all the new certificants in the College. Our provincial chapter is growing yearly and is now up to 3,500 members with 2,600 CCFP members.
3. The BCCFP Annual General Meeting will take place during FMF over the lunch hour on Saturday, October 16th. You are all invited to attend, ask questions and observe the installation of our new president as I complete my term.
4. The BCCFP Board of Directors meets three or four times yearly and is always looking for representatives from various parts of the province, particularly rural areas. It can be difficult to take the time to be involved in the board's meetings. We plan to put in place increased honoraria to cover the financial costs of such participation. We also soon hope to link with distant communities by teleconference for some meetings.
5. Our National College plans to release a paper on the Medical Home at FMF. This paper aims to support family physicians, governments and all Canadians in achieving the primary health care system we all want.
6. Electronic medical records are becoming ever more popular in this province and the Canadian Institute of Health Information has a national project to define content standards for electronic medical records. Your College has the opportunity to provide feedback to CIHI and any comments or concerns that you have will be shared with them.
7. You may have heard of the new section in our national College for Family Physicians with Special Interests and Focused Practices. This section is generating lots of interest and activity towards the organization of those family doctors with special fields of practice. The first new program is the Sport and Exercise Medicine P rogram.
8. The CFPC has sent a letter to Federal Industry Minister, Tony Clement urging retention of the mandatory long form census.
9. Our website is now hosting an online Stroke and TIA e-learning Module , addressing the recent GPAC Guideline, with development sponsored by Heart & Stroke BC.
Please feel free to contact me at office@bccfp.bc.ca if you have any comments or concerns regarding Family Medicine in BC.
Andy Swan MD, CCFP, FCFP
President
