S5 Ep12: Medicine at the Edge Revisited featuring Dr. Ray Markham (originally released Jan 24, 2025)

This week we’re taking a well-deserved week off and so in preparation for this year’s Rural Coordination Centre of BC’s Rural Health Conference to be held in Prince George on May 29-31st, we’re re-releasing one of our favorite archived episodes featuring RCCbc’s own Dr. Ray Markham. In this episode, Dr. Markham takes us through his global career journey to his current practice in Valemount, NE BC, discusses some of the joys and challenges of rural family practice and shows us how rural primary care can also be high quality primary care. This recording was originally the first of two parts of a longer interview with Ray, and you can find the second part in our series archive as Series 4 Episode 9. Link: RCCbc Rural Health ConferenceMedicine at the Edge (Part 1) - If you’re ever tempted to think medicine is practiced the same everywhere in British Columbia, think again. Small rural communities present specific challenges to healthcare delivery due to their size and location, no more so than in the North where we also have long, snowy winters to contend with. That’s not to say that rural care can’t be high quality care. Providing valuable insights into rural family practice is today’s guest Dr. Ray Markham. This interview was so good we split it into two separate episodes. In this first part, Ray talks about his rural, generalist practice in Valemount, how to promote good teamwork and the unsung benefits of working in rural medicine. Links:Partnership PentagramRCCbcContinuing Medicine at the Edge (Part 2) - In the second part of our interview with Northern rural family physician Dr. Ray Markham, we discuss some of his leadership work supporting rural communities across the province through the Rural coordination centre of BC. We discuss how to build a provincial support network and how the constraints of geography and remoteness can be turned to advantage by fueling innovation to improve care “at the edge”.