family physician practice in Ramara<\/a>\u00a0was realized this year it was good news for the community. But many people were left wondering what would\u00a0happen to the Good Doctors telemedicine practice in Brechin.<\/p>\nDr. Anoushka Mohammediankhorasani (Dr. Mo) began seeing patients in July, and Dr. Mehdi Dadashi is scheduled to start seeing patients this fall.<\/p>\n
Dr. Mo opened her practice at the Ramara Medical Centre in Brechin, which is the municipal building Ramara provided for Good Doctors to operate.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal was always clear: bridge the healthcare gap until Ramara had its own family physician. That day has finally arrived,\u201d said a social media post from Good Doctors of Ramara.<\/p>\n
One day after Dr. Mo moved into her space, Good Doctors was in its new location down the street.<\/p>\n
Enter Peter Safa, owner of the Brechin Pharmacy, and Leo Liao, director of Good Doctors Medical Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still see that there is a significant need for the walk-in clinic services,\u201d says Safa, owner of the Brechin Pharmacy, which was established 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
The pharmacy\u2019s team includes a dedicated driver to deliver prescriptions to patients. Weekly, they deliver medications to about 150 patients, says Safa.<\/p>\n
With the expanding services pharmacists can provide, bringing a doctor or registered nurse to round things out at the pharmacy was on his radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were already well equipped with examination rooms,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what we see, there is lots of support and I think it will go well,\u201d says Liao.<\/p>\n
Since the Good Doctors location in Brechin was established in 2021, it has served 26,370 patients. Of them 8,758 were unique clients.<\/p>\n
Between August 2025 and July 2026, the Ramara clinic saw 4,071 patients in person, with 2,268 of them first-time visits.<\/p>\n
About half of the patients are seen for chronic conditions, the other half are acute illnesses, says Liao. Respiratory infections and urinary tract infections are common ailments the clinic assists with. But the practice also supports mental health conditions as well.<\/p>\n
The opportunity for the pharmacy to host Good Doctors was a match made in the waiting room.<\/p>\n
After one year with Good Doctors in Ramara,\u00a0RPN Bonnie Edwards knows the value of the clinic in Ramara.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pulling from Beaverton, Cannington, Woodville, Kirkfield, and then we\u2019ve got all of Orillia who come down. So we\u2019re a really big catchment area,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n
Good Doctors is not simply a virtual clinic. Appointments are made online, then the patient arrives and a nurse assists with the examination and the video call with a doctor who will provide a prescription as necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do take walk-ins. We try to accommodate them as best as possible, but appointment-based is always better because then we can get you in and out in 15 minutes,\u201d says Edwards, who has 25 years of experience in the field.<\/p>\n
She began her employment journey with Good Doctors in the winter, a time when she says there are a lot of visits for respiratory issues. This summer she has assisted a lot of kids with ear infections, or people with tick bites or poison ivy rashes.<\/p>\n
Safa points out that even with the increased scope of ailments pharmacists can prescribe for, there is a list of medical conditions outside this scope that also don\u2019t require a trip to the emergency room.<\/p>\n
Good Doctors and the Brechin pharmacists complement each other, he says, which helps take some of the load off hospitals.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the pharmacist speaks with a patient only to realize a referral to a physician is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cBonnie is really very helpful with this,\u201d Safa explains, being on site she does her best to assist that patient between appointments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learn something new every day,\u201d says Edwards, who has experience as a community nurse and PSW supervisor and now found a passion with Good Doctors.<\/p>\n
After thousands of calls, she says she has a good idea of the right questions to ask to treat different afflictions. Connecting with people is important to her, which makes her work at the clinic more meaningful than if she were a hospital nurse in a bigger city, she says.<\/p>\n
The hybrid model of delivering medical care is what makes Good Doctors unique. Without the nurse present, \u201cthe scope of what the doctor is comfortable doing through telemedicine is reduced,\u201d explains Liao.<\/p>\n
Simple labs or specimen collections \u2014 which better inform the doctors \u2014 would not be done without the nurse on site.<\/p>\n
When the clinic operated through a partnership with the township, the nurses’ wages were covered. This was an initial setback when considering where to relocate.<\/p>\n
Through the agreement with the Brechin Pharmacy, half the nurse\u2019s wage is covered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe arrangement has to make sense for the pharmacy,\u201d says Liao, understanding the burden of additional costs.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also where the challenge comes for Good Doctors Medical Inc. It\u2019s funded by the province as a virtual clinic, despite the physical space and the in-person level of care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctors are billed on a fee for service, so they bill for each visit, but the amount that they bill is less than half of what a normal walk-in clinic is,\u201d Liao says.<\/p>\n
The province recognizes two frameworks for funding medical practices, the walk-in clinic or the virtual clinic. There is no hybrid or in-between model.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point we\u2019re going to have to ask for donations from the community. But it will always be optional,\u201d says Liao.<\/p>\n
The demographic of patients at the Ramara clinic is balanced. The largest group is 60- to 79-year-olds, making up 28 per cent of patients.<\/p>\n
On a sunny August afternoon Edwards recounts how she helped an older senior with a service that would otherwise cost about $100.<\/p>\n
An 80-year-old man was sent to the clinic by his wife because he couldn\u2019t hear properly. He was shaking, nervous about the procedure and claustrophobic, recalls Edwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did his ears. He can hear, they were all cleaned out and he was just so grateful,\u201d Edwards explains. Her gentle compassion led the man to hug her on the way out.<\/p>\n
For others, who might be exiting their appointments with a prescription, the Brechin Pharmacy is steps away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good partnership. We\u2019re still in the trial period, so we\u2019re hoping that this will work in the long term,\u201d says Liao.<\/p>\n
Good Doctors Ramara is located at 2280 Highway 12 in Brechin. It\u2019s open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon. to Fri., for more information and to book an appointment click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘I think it\u2019s a good partnership. We\u2019re still in the trial period, so we\u2019re hoping that this will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,299815],"class_list":["post-861807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-walk-in-clinictelemedicineramara-townshiptownship-of-ramaragood-doctors-ramaragood-doctors-medical-incbrechin-pharmacyleo-liaopeter-safabonnie-edwards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}