The Mary Pack Arthritis Centre is operated by Vancouver Coastal Health and directed by Dr. Alice Klinkhoff, and the Centre runs extensive drug and disease monitoring clinics. These include the Immunosuppressive Clinic (Dr. John Kelsall and Dr. Ken Blocka), the Cyclosporine Clinic (Dr. Andrew Chalmers and Dr. David Collins), the Out-Patient Day Program (Dr. Alice Klinkhoff), the Gold Clinic (Dr. Alice Klinkhoff), and the Young Adults with Rheumatic Diseases Clinic (Dr. David Cabral and Dr. Angela How). There are also two Combined Clinics in Orthopaedics (Drs. Alistair Younger and Dr. Erin Brown), one Combined Clinic in Oral Pathology (Dr. Bruce Blasberg), and a Combined Clinic in Dermatology (Dr. Jan Dutz).

The Mary Pack program coordinates the travel of divisional faculty to 22 remote locations in British Columbia, in a Rheumatology Outreach Program. This program’s goal is to provide consultation and treatment services to communities with populations of 5,000 which do not have a rheumatologist accessible within two hours driving time, as well as to numerous isolated First Nations communities. The Mary Pack program also provides a variety of educational workshops for patients, as well as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and access to social workers and vocational counselors. .

Ambulatory care clinics offered at St. Paul’s Hospital include a rapid access program with Dr. John Kelsall, and the Limited Scleroderma Clinic with Dr. James Dunne. Dr. Dunne also works with Dr. Wilcox, of the Division of Respiratory Medicine, in a Combined Lung Scleroderma Clinic, which helps in our goal to interact with other Divisions in order to promote excellence in the treatment and study of systemic rheumatic diseases. The new Lupus Clinic, directed by Dr. Jennifer Reynolds opened its doors in March 2008, and is also staffed by Dr. Ken Blocka and Dr. Lucie Wilk. The Lupus Clinic continues to grow, seeing new patients referred by General Practitioners as well as complicated consults from fellow rheumatologists.

The rapid-access clinic for early rheumatoid arthritis patients is staffed by Drs. David Collins, Alice Klinkhoff, Lucie Wilk, Diane Lacaille and Andrew Chalmers. This clinic is part of a Canadian network of early rheumatoid arthritis clinics and will share data for research purposes.

The G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre (GFS) has an Arthritis Unit (Director, John Watterson) which offers post-operative and rehabilitative services to rheumatology patients along with specialized physiotherapy, occupational therapy and vocational counseling. In-patient services are offered at Vancouver Acute and St. Paul’s Hospital.

Dr. Robert Offer in Penticton has extensive involvement in teaching including rheumatology fellows, residents and medical students. He is involved in many continuing-education events for physicians. Penticton is the major rheumatology resource for the interior with a well-staffed Mary Pack Treatment Centre at Penticton Regional Hospital and a drug monitoring clinic covering more than 500 active rheumatoid arthritis patients. Dr. Offer does outreach traveling consultation clinics and now telemedicine to Creston, as well as research and clinical trials.

Hospitals:
VGH
SPH
Mary Pack Arthritis Program
GF Strong rehabilitation