All practices are closed on December 25th, December 26th and January 1st.
Dr. Chow
Dr. Haaf
Dr. Corcoran
Dr. Lee
Dr. McCabe
Dr. Hislop
Dr. Sambor
Dr. Gaede & Dr. Xue
Dr. Hasinoff & Dr. Mitra
Dr. Howard
Our Annual Flu Shot Clinics will run INSIDE THE OFFICE and is by APPOINTMENT ONLY. As we have a limited supply this year, we do not have the capacity to vaccinate people without an appointment.
WHERE: Inside the office at 1133 Lonsdale Avenue (3rd floor). WHO: North Shore Medical patients only. We kindly ask that anyone with a needle phobia, or any children requiring extra attention or preparation for vaccinations, book an appointment with their doctor separate from the flu shot clinic. WHEN: Saturday October 19th 9am-12pm - complete Saturday October 26th 9am-12pm- complete Saturday November 2nd 9am-12pm - complete Saturday November 9th 9am-12pm - complete HOW: Appointment only. Please do not call the office, see information below. You do not need to book with your own doctor, as any of the physicians will be working the flu shot clinic and administering shots. IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
HOW TO REQUEST AN APPOINTMENT: Please do not call the office, instead email [email protected] with the following information for EACH person you would like to make an appointment for: 1) Full name 2) Family doctor 3) List two date preferences You will receive a response within 48-72 hours containing an appointment notification with a time slot between 9am and 12pm. AT YOUR APPOINTMENT:
We appreciate your patience during this busy time. As of Sunday April 28th, London Drug Pharmacies are closed until further notice across B.C, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. While pharmacists are said to to be standing by to assist with urgent requests, we recommend that patients consider the following to ensure seemless care:
For urgent prescriptions, please provide our office with the name, address and fax number of an alternative phamacy and we will do our best to redirect. For non-urgent prescriptions, we recommend waiting a few days until London Drugs corrects the issue. We appreciate your patience as we deal with higher than normal patient requests. By January 29th, cervix screening in BC will begin to transition from cytology (PAP test) to HPV testing as the primary screening method for cervical cancer. We will provide more information as we receive it. In the meantime, you are welcome to review the following resources provided by BC Cancer.
Please be advised that our 2023 Outdoor Flu Shot Clinic has finished.
We are happy to report that we were able to administer over 700 doses! If you missed it, you can still book to have your flu shot in the office, as we have some remaining supply. Saturday October 14th- complete Saturday October 21st- complete Saturday October 28th- complete For patients of Dr.’s Corcoran, Hislop, Lee, and Sambor *only*:
You may have recently received an email from us regarding “Patient Attachment”. Here again is the “Attachment Agreement” you are being asked to confirm: "As your primary care provider I, along with my practice team, agree to:
As my patient I ask that you:
Here is the link to the form we are asking you to complete (same form as in the email - you only need to complete the form once PER person, but it must be done for every individual, including children) to indicate your/their agreement with this “Attachment” document: https://forms.gle/GAxNzeAQ6EaUPKEK9 Thank-you for your attention to this matter. Have a great day! Dear Patients,
We have some additional Covid-19/Vaccine information for you, but also some important office related updates further below.
So remember, that while there is a risk of a blood clot from the vaccine, there is a far greater risk of all types of blood clots from Covid-19. Covid-19 is here, now. There is risk no matter which way you go. By taking the vaccine, you are reducing that risk dramatically from what it is right now. The blood clot risk applies to anyone taking the vaccine, and regardless of a history of prior blood clots. The average age has been ~46. Symptoms occur between days 4-20 after the vaccine is given. Symptoms include:
Early identification and treatment is key to a good outcome from this. If your symptoms are mild and you can reach us immediately, you can contact us to discuss. If your symptoms are severe, or if you cannot reach us immediately, someone should immediately take you to the emergency room (do not drive yourself), or call 911. The pandemic has been trying on us all. We are so incredibly fortunate to live in a time where our scientific knowledge has advanced enough that we can change the course of a serious pandemic in 1 year. This isn’t over yet, and things may yet get worse before they get better, but we will hopefully all be taking our first clear steps back towards the world we were used to very soon now. Keep well, Your doctors at the North Shore Medical Group Hello everyone,
We’d like to update you all once more regarding Covid-19, and have some important information to share regarding the state of the pandemic here in BC, vaccines, and perhaps most importantly, variants of Covid-19 that have started to appear not just in other parts of the world, but here too. This will be a mixed picture of some good news (regarding the vaccines), but some serious concerns regarding the Covid-19 variants as well. As before, we will begin with a summary of the key points that everyone should read, and more detailed information below for those who are interested. Key Points
The Details So what is happening with the pandemic? It has unfortunately been rough in some parts of the world, while others have frankly tamed it very effectively using straightforward (which does not mean ‘easy’) measures. Much of the USA, Europe, and numerous other countries have experienced second waves (and even third ones) that were at least as large as the first. Canada was no exception. BC had an obvious second wave, but with increased control measures this has settled down *somewhat*. Many of these locations had relaxed various control measures, and had to re-instate them in varying degrees. Some places went back into extreme measures, with closing of all non-essential businesses, and schools. These measures are costly, but it is 100% crystal clear that they work. New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam are notable for their highly aggressive measures. In some of these locations, just a few cases lead to a widespread lockdown there. They have had incredibly good control with this, and while it is very hard initially on their economies, they are able to relax their restrictions far beyond what we have done. In recent months, Australia has had theaters open, they have had concerts and sporting events with audiences. This has *nothing* to do with the fact that they are an island, and everything to do with the safety measures, and the unity of action by their societies. Places like Vietnam have enjoyed excellent control as well. How do the new variants affect this? In short, badly. Ireland went from having 500 cases per day, to *8000* cases per day in 2 weeks. That is quite astonishing. They entered a hard ‘lockdown’ and brought it under control. The UK, where that variant was first identified fared similarly. All schools in both those locations have been closed since around January 1 st . That variant does not generally stay under control unless increased measures are taken, *beyond* what was done for the original strain we were dealing with for the past year. That being said, it *can* be controlled, just like the original. All the new strains can. In Ireland’s case, they got it back down to about 1000 cases per day, where it has been simmering ever since. This isn’t all about cases. Hospital admissions, critical cases, and deaths followed the increase in cases by about 1-3 weeks. The key takeaway from this is that this is not over just yet. In fact, if we are not careful, and if we do not respond rapidly enough, then we will certainly face a massive outbreak just like occurred in numerous other countries. We are not ‘special’, and it can happen to us too. This means that you must continue to wear masks in all indoor spaces AND try to keep your distance from others. If you have to get close to someone, inside or out, WEAR A MASK AND MINIMIZE THE CONTACT TIME. 5 minutes is starting to be long. 10 minutes is very long. This is why we are trying to keep our office visits with you short, and do as much of the talking as possible by phone or video consult. Avoid going out if you don’t really have to. Severely limit your travel. There is exactly one way these bugs got here in the first place. There is exactly one way they move from one location to another – through us. It is furthermore important to note that immunity to the original strain from prior infection may *not* last, and may not be protective against the newer strains. Manaus is a city in Brazil that had a massive first wave – so large that it was thought perhaps the population had truly developed herd immunity. That was incorrect – at least as far as the new strains are concerned, and they are now in the midst of going through that all over again with a new massive outbreak. How bad is it there? In this city of 2 million people, hospitals ran out of oxygen tanks. They couldn’t provide sick patients oxygen. Let that sink in. These new strains are NOT to be taken lightly. So why haven’t we done more here? This is a choice made at the governmental level. Societies’ tolerance and stamina for these measures play a role. If the new variants spread here, it is highly likely that our safety measures will have to increase. Are schools still safe? We continue to have relatively few outbreaks in schools here, but it is important to recognize that other locations have had large outbreaks. While there was suspicion for some time that children got and transmitted Covid-19 less than adults, there is more and more evidence that this theory is incorrect. To be clear, children definitely don’t get severe illness as often, and studies do suggest that children become sick *slightly* less often than adults. There is growing evidence that they transmit the virus just as much as (and possible more than) adults do. That being said, the measures taken in schools here so far (which focus on clustering students together into large bubbles to prevent spread between them, keeping windows open, and keeping some distance between students) have been at least partly effective. High school students now have to wear masks most of the time. Grade-school children do not yet have a mandate to wear one, but they would likely be highly beneficial to preventing the spread of Covid-19. For this reason, if you have children in grade school, we now *very strongly recommend* they wear a mask indoors at school at all times (except to eat). Just because there is no mandate, does not mean you can’t choose to do more than that. Some of us have our own kids in grade school, who have been wearing masks at school for months. It’s very do-able, and is likely very temporary at this point. The vaccines are coming (more on this just below), and masks may only be needed for months. The new Covid-19 strains may have a serious impact on this. They are clearly much more contagious, including among children. This is part of the reason we are recommending people go beyond the current public health mandates and have school-age children wear masks starting right now. We don’t want to wait for these strains to start spreading. We need to stop them. We need to hold on long enough for the vaccines to be distributed. We need to buy time. Okay, what about the vaccines??! The good news is they work! Really really really well. The vaccine story is just about the best possible outcome anyone could have hoped for. The initial studies done on tens of thousands of people showed that they were extremely safe, and reduce the likelihood of getting serious illness from Covid-19 dramatically. Since then, the vaccines have been rolled out heavily in a few countries, most notably Israel, where about 30% of the country has been vaccinated. They used an age-based approach, and so around 90% of those over the age of 60 have been vaccinated. The country is now witnessing a very dramatic drop in Covid-19 in those over the age of 60,*even while illnesses among the under-60 unvaccinated population were continuing to increase*. The dominant strain there is the more highly contagious and dangerous one identified in the UK. So the vaccine is doing just fine against it. Better still, while it remains slightly early to confirm this officially, there are some good indications that the vaccine not only prevents serious illness, but actually strongly reduces transmission of the virus. This is key, and means the vaccine will likely play a critical role in helping to actually end the pandemic. Of course this means people have to actually get the vaccine. At the moment we have a terrible supply problem in Canada. Once that starts to change next month, essentially ALL OF YOU, we repeat essentially ALL OF YOU, should be getting the vaccine. Who shouldn’t get the vaccine? If you previously had the Covid-19 vaccine and had an allergic reaction to it, then this needs to be discussed in detail with your doctor. If you previously had an allergic reaction to a substance called polyethylene glycol (PEG), this should be discussed with your doctor. If you have had an anaphylactic reaction to an unknown substance then you should discuss this with your doctor. That’s it. People with a history of allergies in general will be getting the vaccine, but may be observed on site for a short time right after the shot. Tens of millions of doses of the vaccines have been given. By the time any of you reading this get it, it will likely be over 100 million people worldwide. We already know right now that the likelihood of an allergic reaction is about the same as the odds of you getting hit by lightning in the next 18 months. Is getting hit by lightning this year something you were worried about? You should be exactly that worried about an allergic reaction to the vaccine. What about other allergies? This is generally not an issue. Allergies to one thing generally don’t predict allergies to something else. If you are allergic to nuts, we don’t tell you to avoid milk. They have nothing to do with each other. Out of abundance of caution, there will be protocols in place to collect your past allergy information from you, and you may be asked to remain at the vaccine site for a short time. This is because in the rare case of an allergic reaction, the vast majority occur within 11 minutes of the vaccine being given. The vast majority of allergic reactions have been easily treated *on site*. A small number have had to go to hospital, and 100% of people worldwide who had allergic reactions to the vaccine, including anaphylactic reactions, recovered with standard treatments for that, within a few hours. Furthermore, they still developed some degree of immunity to Covid-19 from the 1 dose. Which vaccine should I get? Whichever one is available to you first. DO NOT WAIT. Period. Will kids get the vaccine? Probably. Studies have been launched for kids, and results should be available by late summer. It is always important to do these studies, but at the same time, it would be unusual for there to be any issue. In all likelihood the results will be exactly like in adults, the vaccines will be approved for those age groups, and kids will get vaccinated too, but later in the year. In the meantime, if adults are all vaccinated, community transmission should subside and this will help protect our children. They should still get the vaccine later on because they are still susceptible, and some children do still get seriously ill, especially to the new strains that are starting to circulate. A worrisome scenario is if adults are all vaccinated and safety measures are relaxed, but the bug is still around, then cases among children could skyrocket, with large numbers of children getting very sick. The future is looking brighter, but we know everyone is tired of all this. Hang in there, let us know how we can help you through this, we are hopefully at a turning point. Best wishes, and stay safe, North Shore Medical Group Hello again everyone,
We wanted to provide you another update regarding the Covid19 pandemic. A lot has changed since our last communication, and we felt it was important to answer some of your questions, and provide some guidance on all this. As with previous emails on this subject, we start with a brief summary of critical points. For those interested in additional details, please read on below. This will be a bit of a mix of caution, but also hope. Key Points:
The details: As most of you have no doubt seen, as society in BC opened back up, Covid-19 began spreading once more. It has started spreading quite a bit, with a doubling of new cases per day roughly every 3 weeks over the last 2 months. It is critical to recognize that that is *not* sustainable. That curve has not been flat, it has been rising, steeply. Continuing for even a couple of more months along this path would likely lead to an overwhelmed health care system, much like occurred in other places such as Italy and New York. Additional measures were therefore put in place by the Public Health Office, such as requiring masks for all public indoor locations (other than schools), and limitations on athletic activities and visits to your home. These measures are entirely appropriate. What is not clear, is if they are enough. There has been a slight levelling off in the last few days. The challenge is that while cases, hospitalizations, and deaths can be kept low if there aren’t many in the first place, it’s very hard to get them low again once they go up. So far, no other country has successfully done so, without measures substantially more aggressive than we currently have in place. The flip side of that, is that several other countries have repeatedly demonstrated that they are able to suppress surges in viral infections. They have shown us how. We ‘just’ need to do it. It is critical in this environment, to understand where virus transmission becomes a risk. We have known for some time that virus is spread partly by ‘droplets’, invisible fluid we expel when we breathe and which tend to travel up to about 6 feet, and then settle toward the ground. It is now clear that there is ‘airborne’ transmission as well. This means that not all of the virus settles to the ground, but rather hovers in the air for a much longer time (the duration of which remains unclear, but is probably 2-3 hours), and may travel a significant distance that way (around 20 feet or more depending on air currents, fans etc). This is why keeping distance from others is so essential, and why it is hard to maintain enough distance indoors. Masks can add a layer of protection and decrease the likelihood that you breath in the virus while in the presence of others. It is not a full-proof shield though, and should be seen as a *back-up* method of protection. Keeping your distance is much more important. Lastly, minimize your time in close contact with others as much as you can. You are less likely to get infected if you are next to someone for only a few seconds. With about 5-15 minutes of exposure time though, the risk goes up…a lot...even with a mask on. You can see from this why most infections are being passed on in people’s homes, at many places of work, dine-in restaurants, and gyms/sports facilities. You can also see why transmission outdoors is much lower (but not zero) risk. What about kids? This remains a frustratingly controversial topic. As previously noted, there is some limited evidence that kids *under 12* become infected less than older kids or adults. Since we last updated you, there is growing evidence that if they do get infected, they transmit it to others just as well as anyone though. So while they may get it less, and while they get sick less, they nonetheless spread it just as well as anyone. Kids can wear masks though, and it would seem clearly helpful for everyone over age 2 to wear a mask whenever they are in close contact with others, indoors or outdoors. We need to turn this around somehow. When will we have the vaccine?!?? It certainly feels like it can’t come soon enough. There are currently a few vaccines about to be released to the public. It appears that they are highly effective. Their safety profiles are fantastic. They have been tested on tens of thousands of people, with zero serious adverse events. Canada will have access to these, and it is expected the first doses will be delivered here within a couple of weeks. *However*…it will take a *long* time to roll them out. These will arrive in batches, with early doses dedicated to various high-risk groups. The order of release will be something along these lines:
It is impossible for us to know, but we expect groups 1-3 above will take until at least March-April 2021. So few (if any) of you reading this will likely be getting the vaccine until at least late Spring. Hopefully many people in the community can be vaccinated during the late Spring and Summer. Vaccines for kids (current vaccines are for adults only) will probably come available right around then, and hopefully many kids can be vaccinated before school starts next Fall. Some key points about the vaccines:
This isn’t over yet. But we are on the cusp of turning this fight around. We are moving from defense to offence. We need everyone to work together to get there though. So please do your part. Think of those around you. Take responsibility for your actions, even if you see others fail to. Whatever you do will help, and you will have made a valuable contribution to society by being kind, smart, and safe. North Shore Medical Group Physicians Dear Patients,
It’s flu shot time! Our influenza immunizations will look a little different this year. Our priority is to provide flu shots in a safe and efficient manner. In order to maintain the required social distancing, we are holding immunizations in the outdoor covered space behind our building 1133 Lonsdale. There will be a tent set up to ensure your privacy. The clinics will be held on Saturdays and will need to be pre-booked with an appointment. To Pre-book your flu shot please email your request to [email protected] ***Please ensure to include in your email your first and last name, phone number and who your family physician is and we will contact you directly with an appointment. We are hoping to host our first clinic on Saturday Oct. 17. ***For young children (6 and under) and those who have challenges with vaccines, please book an appointment directly with your doctor. In B.C., the flu vaccine is provided free to the following groups of people: People at high risk of serious illness from influenza, such as:
COVID QUESTIONNAIRE IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS ON THE DAY OF YOUR APPOINTMENT, PLEASE EMAIL TO REBOOK YOUR FLU SHOT.
ON THE DAY OF YOUR APPOINTMENT PLEASE: •Wear a mask •Wear a loose fitting top that will allow us to give you your immunization in your upper arm •Follow our social distancing and queuing instructions •Be respectful of our neighbours •Bring a smile Thanks for all you support in helping us deliver safe flu vaccinations this year! Kind regards, Doctors and Staff North Shore Medical Group |
North Shore Medical GroupAs a collective of physicians NSMG has taken it upon themselves to help our patients and our community stay informed with the latest pressing information ranging from important office updates to the latest information on the coronavirus pandemic. CategoriesArchives
November 2024
|