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> Family Practice Home > Department > Department News & Events > Newsletters > Family Matters Summer 2010
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History
MERG reading list
Fall 2010 issue | |||||||||||||||||||
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 | Department of Family Practice welcomes new Head, Dr. Martin DawesDawes has strong interests in practice, research and administration, and will work with primary care providers and Health Authorities across the province to ensure that the Department’s education and research programs both serve and remain relevant to the health care needs of British Columbians. >> more | ||||||||||||||||||
 | Farewell Message from the Interim Leadership Team In looking back over this period, we are pleased to report that not only have we kept the ship afloat but have managed to move it forward. >> more | ||||||||||||||||||
 | Appreciation Celebration for Drs. Louise Nasmith and Ian Scott, Interim Leadership Team (slideshow)A small celebration was held on Monday, August 9, 2010 to thank and fete Drs. Nasmith and Scott for their incredible work as co-Heads of the Department. >> more | ||||||||||||||||||
DEPARTMENT NEWS | |||||||||||||||||||
DFP renames Divisions as Special Interest Focus Programs (SIFPs)The Department of Family Practice, after extensive review and consultation with Division leadership, has decided to rename the divisions. The eight “sub-groups” of family practice overseen by the Department will now be referred to as “Special Interest Focus Programs” or SIFPs. >> more | |||||||||||||||||||
 | DFP celebrates family medicine research with Research DayMore than 300 Department members attended the annual Family Practice Research Day at Regent College on Friday, June 18, 2010. >> moreView a slideshow | ||||||||||||||||||
 | 2010 Family Practice Research Skills Workshops a successOn Thursday, June 17, 2010 – prior to Family Practice Research Day – the Research Office of the Department hosted nearly 50 attendees for its 2010 Research Skills Workshops. >> moreView a slideshow | ||||||||||||||||||
SPECIAL INTEREST FOCUS GROUPS (SIFPS) AND UNIT UPDATES | |||||||||||||||||||
Mobile Palliative Care in Kerala, India: Observations from Dr. Patricia Boston“I learned a great deal about courage, resilience and dignity in dying in my few encounters there…there is a lot we can offer and teach from our world but there is also much we can learn.” >> more | |||||||||||||||||||
| Collaborating Centre for Prison Health and Education (CCPHE), Global Health relaunch web sites | |||||||||||||||||||
FACULTY NEWS | |||||||||||||||||||
Dr. Abraham (Braam) de Klerk appointed to the Order of CanadaFamily physician and Clinical Assistant Professor, Abraham (Braam) de Klerk, has been appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010. >> more | |||||||||||||||||||
 | Dr. Alister Browne honoured at Gowning CeremonyDr. Alister Browne, a Vancouver-based preceptor for the Department of Family Practice, was promoted to the rank of Clinical Professor at a gowning ceremony hosted by Dean Gavin Stuart. >> more | ||||||||||||||||||
Department of Family Practice members honoured for 25, 40 yearsIn April 2010, the Faculty of Medicine hosted a celebration to recognize
faculty and staff members who have provided 25 or more years of service
to the university. >> more | |||||||||||||||||||
RECENT AWARD WINNERS | |||||||||||||||||||
College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) honours several DFP faculty in 2010 list of awards | |||||||||||||||||||
BC College of Family Physicians honours DFP faculty with Awards of Excellence
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Dr. Marjorie Doherty winner of 2010 Peter Grantham Award for Teaching ExcellenceDr. Peter Grantham presented Dr. Marjorie Doherty, faculty for the Kelowna postgraduate site, with the 2010 Peter Grantham Award for Teaching Excellence during Family Practice Research Day. >> more | |||||||||||||||||||
Postgraduate site faculty honoured with Teaching AwardsSeveral Department of Family Practice Postgraduate preceptors were lauded for excellence in teaching during 2010 Family Practice Research Day.>> more | |||||||||||||||||||
Dr. Patricia Janssen honoured with President's Award, | |||||||||||||||||||
 | Martha Donnelly, Lachlan Macintosh recognized for teaching excellence by Faculty of Medicine | ||||||||||||||||||
Martha Donnelly elected Primus Inter Pares by | |||||||||||||||||||
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Dr. Gurdeep Parhar receives Trial Lawyer's Association of British Columbia's 2010 President's Award | |||||||||||||||||||
SPECIAL INTEREST FOCUS GROUPS (SIFPs) AND UNIT UPDATES
Mobile Palliative Care in Kerala, India: Observations from Dr. Patricia Boston
Dr. Patricia Boston was
invited to ride along as
an observer with the
mobile palliative care
unit in Kerala, India.
In February 2010, Dr. Patricia Boston, Clinical Professor and Director of the Department’s Palliative Care Special Interest Focus Program (SIFP), attended the 17th International Conference of the Indian Association of Palliative Care in Thiruchirapally, India. While there, she was invited to “ride along” as an observer with a mobile palliative care home visit team – led by Dr. M. R. Rajagopal, the “father of palliative care in India” – in Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
Kerala is renowned amongst western palliative care providers. The province has the most extensive palliative care program in India and provides approximately two-thirds of India’s total services for dying patients. Surprisingly, Keralans comprise a mere two per cent of the total Indian population. Residents of this province do not have a significantly improved health status or higher income than the rest of India, so why is its palliative care program so much more advanced?
During her travels through the hilly terrain of rural Kerala, Boston quickly learned that much of the success of the palliative care home visit program stemmed from the integrated partnership between mobile health care teams and volunteers. Volunteers are trained by care providers to offer support and build relationships with patients and their families. They are also key figures in fundraising, working find ways to help cover the expensive costs of health care services. Most importantly, however, volunteers are trained to refer the worst cases to the health care team, often riding along in the van and leading physicians and nurses directly to the homes of those patients most in need of treatment.
Another key component contributing to the success of the Kerala program is the strong commitment of health service providers to provide home care for the patient where possible. “The medical teams worked carefully with [each] family, teaching and assisting them at every point in the procedure [of bandaging and/or dressing wounds],” says Boston. When nurses tended the patient, they would also gently work with the family to educate them about continuing care and treatment for their loved one. “The families often wanted to learn how to apply even difficult treatments,” notes Boston, “The desire to take care of their family member was more than a duty. There was really a willingness on the part of the family to take care of the ill.”
In addition to learning how to change bandages and dress tricky wounds, some families were also taught how to dispense oral morphine elixirs and use sentinel patches to manage patient comfort. In cases where the patient pain was too severe for the family to manage, the palliative care physician ordered a hypodermic injection of morphine. “Kerala is one of the first states in India that permits the use of morphine in pain management,” observes Boston, “Having access to a stable supply of morphine is a key factor for the success of the Keralan palliative care program.”
In a country where a large percentage of the population lives in poverty, hospitalization is often too expensive to be considered a viable option for most patients. However, Boston observed a case during her visit where the pain of the female patient was so great that Dr. Rajagopal immediately called for an ambulance and admitted her to Kerala General Hospital. It was understood that this admission was based on compassionate grounds and that the family would not be billed for the stay. “Admissions of this sort do not occur frequently,” says Boston, “but it was clear that this case was beyond the abilities of the family and the health care team to manage at home.” Boston was not certain if admissions of this sort are a privilege available to all care teams or to Dr. Rajagopal specifically, but she was moved by the remarkable action.
Boston summarized her experience by saying she was “always impressed with the kindness, gentleness and exquisite listening practiced by the home care teams” and that despite the language barrier, she could easily see there was compassion, commitment and a genuine desire to relieve the suffering of patients and their families. She points out that at times, the team would enter a home and see distress and pain beyond “what we could ever imagine in our system [in North America]” but that the ability of the team to comfort, listen and show empathy in spite of such limited resources seemed to exist as an integral quality in all of the caregivers she met in Kerala. “I learned a great deal about courage, resilience and dignity in dying in my few encounters there…there is a lot we can offer and teach from our world but there is also much we can learn.”
Collaborating Centre for Prison Health Education and Global Health redesign web sites
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| New web interface for CCPHE | |
New web interface for Global Health |
Two Special Interest Focus Programs (SIFPs, formerly known as divisions) have incorporated the updated UBC branding ("common look and feel") for their respective web sites.The Collaborating Centre for Prison Health and Education (CCPHE) and Global Health recently worked with the Department's in-house IT (FMIT) development team to create new interfaces that allow users to navigate through the site more quickly and intuitively. The development team also installed a search engine specific to the Department of Family Practice web site, enabling users to find specific content more efficiently.
The Global Health web site was migrated to the UBC Office of Learning Technology's WordPress server, which will enable content providers to easily add text, photo and video content to the web site.
In addition to the new Global Health web site, FMIT also created a searchable database of projects, learning and/or volunteer opportunities for the group. Students, residents and faculty can search or contribute to the database and can additionally recommend it on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
To learn more about these projects or to find out how your SIFP can incorporate the new UBC brand, contact FMIT now.