CARSTAIRS - The newest medical clinic in Mountain View County held an open house on Oct. 7.
The Snowy Owl Medical Clinic in Carstairs currently has two doctors on staff with plenty of room for expansion. Dr. Richard From, who moved down the road from Didsbury, started the clinic.
“We have big aspirations here,” said From. “We're going to do top quality care here. We're owned locally. I'm from Didsbury. I grew up there. My parents live between Carstairs and Didsbury.”
From wants the clinic, which opened Oct. 3, to be able to do quality improvement projects as well as practise modern, evidence-based medicine.
“Modern medicine is based on outcomes not on what a doctor has always known,” he said.
From said he plans to build a team that will help not only with delivering care for current health problems in a patient, but any problems that may come up in the future, through prevention and screening.
“If you're going to the ER all the time your health might not be optimal,” he said. “Maybe we can prevent those ER visits by changing the way we do health care.”
A new medical clinic was much needed in Carstairs, said From.
“Carstairs has grown so much in the last few years,” he said. “This clinic is going to have very friendly, easy to access care with high-quality physicians. Carstairs can support multiple clinics. Right now people are seeking help outside of town. We're hoping to get those people coming back.”
From said they had to make plenty of renovations to the building since taking it over on Sept. 21. He said they added desks and computers including printers in each room.
“So you don't have to go run around to find where your prescription printed out,” he said. “We did tons of renovations to this place. There were lots of sliding doors between rooms. It's been modernized. We have an electronic medical record system.”
The clinic has 10 exam rooms and can accommodate five full-time physicians comfortably as well as several part-time ones.
Joining From at the clinic are (starting soon) Dr. Charles Wang as well as locum (temporary) Dr. Michelle Milne for the month of October.
“He's a family physician from Calgary,” said From. “He did his training at the University of Alberta. He is also doing a dermatology fellowship. He does special skin clinics. He is an expert on skin. He is not a fully specialized dermatologist because he wanted to do family practice, but he has already done tons of research, had publications, and is still doing training with a world famous dermatologist in Edmonton. He will be joining us very soon.”
From said Milne is working as a locum for the month at the clinic.
“She is looking to come back to Alberta,” said From. “She's a Canadian trained grad and is looking at different clinics to come back to in the late winter. She's seen some walk-in patients in the month. We're hoping to get a female physician here in Carstairs. She's been doing a great job already.”
From is renting the property from the Town of Carstairs. He expects to add more physicians down the road but says they want to build slowly.
“We want the physicians to join to have enough patients,” he said. “We know if we provide high-quality care that people will want to be part of this.”
"We're going to do top quality care here."Dr. Richard From
