Vancouver Residents & Alumni Summer BBQ
Are you excited to kick-start your residency in Vancouver? Would you like the chance to meet and mingle with fellow residents and UBC Faculty of Medicine Alumni? Whether you did your MD degree at UBC or elsewhere, you are now part of the UBC medical community. We would like to welcome you as you start this new phase in your medical career and invite you to join us for our inaugural Vancouver Resident & Alumni summer BBQ at the Medical Student and Alumni Centre (MSAC).
This casual event will start immediately following Resident Orientation on July 5th and is a great way to meet other residents & alumni, enjoy a (free!) delicious BBQ and sample some BC craft beer.
Location: William A. Webber Medical Student and Alumni Centre
Address: 2750 Heather Street, Vancouver
Date: Tuesday, July 5th
Time: 4:00PM – 7:00PM
Mingle | Complimentary BBQ | Local Craft Beer
RSVP by Thursday, June 30th
For more information please contact 604-875-4111 ext 62032 or med.alumni@ubc.ca
Leslie Anderson MD’13
Leslie Anderson, MD’13 invited Rick Mercer to film a segment of his show with resident doctors for Resident Awareness Week. 
Gavin Smart MD’ 84
Busy Vernon Family Doctor by day, Medical Director of the Vernon Search and Rescue Helicopter Winchline Rescue Program by good fortune!
When Gavin Smart, MD’84 is not performing his day job as a busy Vernon family doctor, he volunteers his time assisting with Helicopter Winchline Rescue (HWR) missions in the Northern Okanagan region, often in unforgiving winter conditions. When asked if he foresaw himself winching out of helicopters at the beginning of his medical career, Smart replied that the prospect was unimaginable. The unimaginable meandered into reality when in 2014 a friend asked Smart to be the Medical Director of the Vernon Search and Rescue HWR Program, a two year pilot project funded by Emergency Management B.C.
Based out of Vernon, BC, the Vernon Search and Rescue HWR Program responds to emergency situations within a 200km radius of Vernon and rescues the seriously injured, the lost, or those who have fallen ill in remote terrain. Through this program, Smart’s team is able to winch down on a cable to an emergency scene directly from their helicopter, obviating man-power intensive and lengthy ground rescue. The Vernon SAR-HWR program is the first volunteer SAR unit in Canada to deploy this technology and the only non-military personnel providing this service.
Although Smart describes the experience of embarking on these rescue missions as euphoric and riveting, he also alluded to an element of role reversal as he was stepping out of the helicopter for the first time. “Nothing can quite prepare you for stepping out of a helicopter and winching 200 feet down a cable. As I was leaving the helicopter, I was very aware of the fact that I was placing my life in someone else’s hands.”
Owned by Wildcat Helicopters in West Kelowna, the Bell 212 encompasses a full range of life saving medical equipment from ACLS/ATLS to rewarming. “The whole idea of the program is to bring the hospital to the patient, then transfer the patient to the hospital.” Smart cites there are many challenges one faces when providing acute care on a helicopter. “My work space is 4×3 feet (kneeling), which is a very challenging and confined space to provide medical care. Luckily, we have yet to face a situation with multiple victims.”
While the HWR program averages around 10 calls per year, Smart recalls a recent rescue mission this past December. “We got the call late in the afternoon of a snowmobiler unable to move to due to severe chest pain from a heart attack. We only had an hour of daylight left in a blizzard with -12 Celsius. We were able to fly to the remote mountainous scene, extract the patient and transfer to EHS in Vernon in just over an hour- a 100 km mission which would have taken up to 14 hours by ground. Our patient had an excellent outcome.” While no two rescue missions are the same, Smart cites common patterns leading to the need to be rescued. “Unfamiliarity with reading the terrain and lacking basic levels of preparedness and respect for mother nature often leads to disaster.”
When Smart is not in embarking on rescue missions and winching out of helicopters, you can find him doing anything and everything outdoors related from cycling and cross country skiing, to gardening and hiking. He is also a Director of the Vernon Doctor’s Hockey Tournament, where over 340 physicians, residents and medical students lace up every winter.
Nathan Hoffart MSc’13 (SLP)
Degree and Grad Year: MSc’13 (SLP)
Current home city: Terrace, BC
Current Profession: Registered Speech-Language Pathologist, Coast Mountains School District #82
Nathan Hoffart provides assessment and treatment of speech and language disorders within the school aged population. With a focus on early intervention, Hoffart provides direct service from Kindergarten to grade three, as well as assessment and consultation for older grades. Hoffart also runs a small private practice on the side where he works primarily with private school and homeschool students.
1. Today in healthcare it’s important to…
Keep your own mental and physical health as a priority. As caring individuals and healthcare professionals, there is a real danger that we can burn ourselves out. We need to help ourselves so that we can continue to help others.
2. What made you interested in Speech & Audiology Sciences?
While training to be a professional actor at Studio 58 in Vancouver, my wife and I got engaged and, after some soul searching, I decided to move towards a career that could better support a family. While studying at Studio 58 I had been introduced to, and fallen in love with, the IPA- that’s the International Phonetic Alphabet, not the beer (although it has a special place in my heart as well).
I knew that I wanted to continue to work with the IPA, and I had a passion for studying speech and language, so I set my sights on the dream career of a Speech-Language Pathologist and continued on to a B.A. in Linguistics at UVIC and a M.Sc. in Speech-Language Pathology at UBC.
3. What do you consider your greatest achievement to date?
My three beautiful daughters Seraph, Miriam, and Agnes, as well as our fourth child coming this June.
4. Name the last book you couldn’t put down.
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.
5. What is the best professional advice you’ve received?
Learn how to say no.
6. What is your favourite UBC memory?
Living in Family Housing and being surrounded by friends and cultures from around the world. That and longboarding down parkades at night.
7. Who was your favourite UBC Faculty of Medicine professor?
That’s a hard choice. But if forced to choose, I would have to say Dr. May Bernhardt. She shares my passion for both theatre and speech and language.
8. Biggest risk you’ve taken to date?
Moving to a small remote community in the North that I was unfamiliar with, as well as working full-time and starting a private practice while raising and homeschooling my three children and volunteering excessively in my community.
9. What advice would you give to current speech and audiology students?
Take it easy. Learn to say no to things. It doesn’t all have to happen at once!
10. What aspects of the Faculty of Medicine, SPA program did you most appreciate?
I really enjoyed the fact that it was in BC! I did not want to have to leave the province for grad school. I also enjoyed the focus on learning about hearing as well as speech and language. In my first year I even considered switching to audiology.
11. What profession might you have pursued, if not for speech and audiology?
As I mentioned, I was on my way to become a professional actor, but if I could do it all again, I might go into physics. I know a bit of a different direction, but things are so exciting in the world of physics right now!
12. Please name a few of your favourite hobbies and activities:
I love acting, singing in choirs, and playing board games. Since moving to the North I have also fallen in love with skiing and a full contact “sport” called boffering, where grown men (and some women) sword fight with foam wrapped PVC pipes.
13. Bucket List Item?
Travel the world with my family learning languages.
Hoffart is currently the President of the BC Association of Speech and Language Pathologists and Audiologists as well as the current Chair of Sacred Heart Parish School. Hoffart was also awarded the grand prize in the Futurpreneur Thrive North Business Challenge. He continues to live his passion for acting, volunteering as Director at Large, Terrace, Little Theatre.
Alix Bacon BMID’12
Degree and Grad Year: BMID’12
Current home city: Vancouver BC
Current Job Title: President, Midwives Association of BC, Registered Midwife, South Delta Midwifery
Bacon is a Registered Midwife at South Delta Midwifery, where she meets with midwifery clients in the clinic and attends births at home as well as at Richmond Hospital and provides postpartum home visits. When she’s not catching babies, Bacon can also be found at the Midwives Association of BC Office where she chairs the MABC Board, oversees negotiations and guides implementation of programs to support BC Midwives.
- Today in healthcare it’s important to…Refocus on primary care, client centered care, informed choice and collaborative care. We must also commit to addressing health inequities for aboriginal and rural families.
- What made you interested in midwifery as a profession? My nana had four babies at home in Ireland. She is practical, health focused and confident in her body and offered a positive contrast to the social birth narrative of my youth.
- What do you consider your greatest achievement to date?: I have found a career that is integrity with my values and has allowed me to lift myself and my mother out of poverty and into a place of wellbeing.
- Name the last book you couldn’t put down: The Mountain Shadow by Gregory David Roberts
- What is the best professional advice you’ve received? Take the time to build relationships with clients, continuity improves outcomes and decreases litigation.
- What is your favourite UBC memory? Nights spent in CiTR’s on air booth speaking with listeners.
- Who was your favourite UBC Faculty of Medicine professor? Cathy Ellis, RM Senior Faculty at UBC. Cathy has worked in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Kosovo, Zambia, Uganda and Nepal as a midwife and instructor. She taught me how to manage obstetrical emergencies, to triage in low resource environments, to build and create international partnerships, teach midwifery students and mentored me through the process of publishing research.
- What advice would you give to current midwifery students? Go on the Global Placement to Uganda! You’ll have an amazing adventure, learn how to provide care in low resource settings and build the confidence and skills to handle any birthing situation.
- What profession might you have pursued, if not for midwifery: Marine Biologist. Children’s Librarian.
- Please name a few of your favourite hobbies and activities: Kayaking, yoga, vegan cooking.
- Bucket List Item? Climbing the steps to Lhasa.
Bacon also represents BC Midwives in the media and on joint committees working with the Ministry of Health and other primary care providers, obstetricians and nurses to implement provincial health policy. Prior to Midwifery, Bacon worked as a Certified Sexual Health Educator. Volunteering as Clinical Faculty with UBC, Bacon continues to be recognized for her leadership in the field of Midwifery, receiving the Young Midwives in the Lead Award 2016, UBC Midwifery Vision and Leadership 2015, Patricia Jansen Research Award 2012, College of Health Disciplines Jessie Gordon McCarthy Award 2011 and 1st Place Health Council of Canada Innovation Award UBC C.A.R.E.S. Team 2011.
