Our Physicians

Dr Naaz Parmar

Dr Naaz Parmar

Dr. Parmar is a Geriatrician practicing at Vancouver General Hospital.  She completed medical school, Internal Medicine Residency and a Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at UBC. 

At VGH she is an attending for the Geriatric Medicine Consult Service.  Her outpatient clinics include Falls Prevention Clinic, Pre-operative Geriatrics Clinic, and the VGH Rapid Access Clinic  She enjoys a wide range of interests including: Dementia, Mobility and Polypharmacy. 

Active in teaching as a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC she is the Co-Chair for “Dementia Week” for UBC Undergraduate Medicine, Geriatrics Theme Lead for the UBC Curriculum and is also an attending for the UBC Geriatric Medicine Longitudinal Fellows Clinic. 

She founded Pacific Geriatricians Group (PGG) with a desire to  expand access to Geriatric Medicine  throughout BC.

Dr Larry Dian

Dr. Dian is a Geriatrician practicing at Vancouver General Hospital. He completed medical school in Johannesburg, South Africa, and an Internal Medicine Residency at the University of British Columbia.

He completed a Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at UBC and UCLA in Los Angeles, California. He has been a Clinical Professor at UBC since 2010. He is past Division Head of Geriatric Medicine at Vancouver General Hospital and UBC. He is currently Clinical Head of the Falls and Fractures Prevention Clinic at VGH.

He has research interests in Osteoporosis as well as Falls Prevention. His outpatient clinics include Falls Prevention, Dementia, and related disorders, and General Geriatrics.

 

Dr Amanda Hill

Dr. Hill graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand. She got her Specialty in Internal Medicine at McMaster University and in Geriatrics at the University of British Columbia.  

She has run a general geriatrics practice with work in acute care and in the community.  She is the current Head of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Providence Health Care and is active in educating trainees from all disciplines.

At St Paul’s she runs a general geriatric clinic and clinics in the perioperative assessment. She collaborates with the Nephrology program, the TAVI program, and the Immunodeficiency clinic in the assessment of frailty and its impact on care and decision-making.  

She has a special interest in Frailty and perioperative assessment and in dementia and its impact on families.  She is interested in the MAID process and is willing to provide MAID assessment

Dr. Maria Chung

Dr. Maria Chung

Dr. Maria Chung graduated from McGill Faculty of Medicine and completed a Fellowship in Internal Medicine followed by a Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at the University of BC.

She was fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend part of her time at Stanford University during her Geriatrics training. She is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in Geriatric Medicine at the UBC and a consulting Geriatric Medicine specialist at VGH and UBCH and has served as Past Division Head.

She provides home visit consultations through Three Bridges and Pacific Spirit Community Health Units for housebound seniors. Dr. Chung has an interest in advocacy for the elderly and volunteers as a member of the Board of Directors for SUCCESS, participating in the Seniors’ Task Force and Advocacy committee, as well as serving as Chair of the Doctors of BC Geriatrics and Palliative Care Subcommittee.

Dr Sarah Sy

Dr. Sy is a specialist in Geriatric Medicine and Geriatric Diabetes. She completed medical school at the Cumming School of Medicine (University of Calgary), and Internal Medicine Residency and Geriatric Medicine Fellowship at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Sy is currently pursuing additional training in Geriatric Diabetes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Joslin Diabetes Center, affiliates of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

She has special interests in geriatric diabetes, dementia care, and medical education. She will be practicing Geriatric Medicine and Geriatric Diabetes when she returns to Vancouver in October 2020.

Dr Keeva Lupton

Dr Keeva Lupton

Dr. Lupton completed medical school, Internal Medicine Residency and a Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at UBC.

She is working at Providence Health Care for the inpatient Geriatric Medicine team. Her interests are broad and include general geriatrics, mobility and dementia care.

Dr Lawrence Lo

Dr. Lo is a Geriatrician practicing at St. Paul’s Hospital and Mt. St. Joseph Hospital. He completed medical school at the University of Toronto and Internal Medicine Residency and Geriatric Medicine Fellowship at the University of British Columbia (UBC).  

He completed his Masters of Health Professions Education through Maastrict University. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC and has been Program Director of the UBC Geriatric Medicine Residency Training Program since 2014. He has a special interest in dementia care and medical education. Dr. Lo is fluent in Mandarin and Japanese and able to provide Geriatric Consultations for Mandarin or Japanese speaking patients and families. 

Dr Tracy Zhang

Dr. Zhang is a Geriatrician practicing at Providence Health Care. She graduated from medical school at University of Alberta, then moved to Vancouver to complete her Internal Medicine Residency and Geriatric Medicine Fellowship at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Zhang enjoys a mixed practice of caring for older adults in hospital and in an outpatient setting.  She has a special interest in dementia care, frailty, and cancer care in older adults. She is fluent in Mandarin and is able to perform geriatric assessments for Mandarin speaking patients and families.  

Dr Marieh Shafie

Dr. Shafie is a Care of the Elderly Physician providing Home Visits in the City of Vancouver. Dr. Shafie completed her Care of the Elderly training through UBC and has experience providing care in office, home and Long-term Care settings.  Dr. Shafie is able to provide assessments for Farsi speaking patients and families residing in the City of Vancouver.   

Dr Susan Purkiss

Dr Purkiss is a specialist in General Internal Medicine. She did her medical training at McMaster University in Ontario, and her postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at UBC. She completed an osteoporosis fellowship at UBC, and also completed an obstetric medicine fellowship simultaneously at both UBC and Sydney Australia.

She is a Clinical Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Medicine. She has a longstanding interest in women’s health through the lifespan, particularly osteoporosis, and postmenopausal health and has worked with colleagues at the previous Osteoporosis clinic at BCW Hospital for many years.

She is relocating her bone health practice to the Osteoporosis Clinic at PGG.

Dr Rishi Bhalla

Dr Rishi Bhalla

Dr. Bhalla is a clinical neuropsychologist. He completed his doctoral training in clinical psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology, followed by a one-year clinical residency in the Neuropsychology Track at Brown University. He subsequently completed two neuropsychology based postdoctoral fellowships (in dementia from Brown University and in geriatric psychiatry from the University of Pittsburgh).

Dr. Bhalla has been working as a clinical neuropsychologist on a specialty geriatrics unit at Vancouver General Hospital since 2008. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. He also served as the Director of Scholarly Activities for the Geriatric Psychiatry subspecialty residency program at UBC.

Dr. Bhalla’s clinical interests include the neuropsychological assessment of neurodegenerative disorders and late-life psychiatric disorders.