Our lead columnist, Dr. Art Hister, graduated from McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, in 1970. In 1971 he moved across the country to Vancouver to become the first full-time physician with the Pine Free Clinic, the first Canadian clinic established to deal exclusively with transient youth. Dr. Hister left the Pine Free Clinic in 1977 to enter private practice.
Our
regular health columnist, Claire Sowerbutt, monitors medical news on a daily basis.
Claire is a widely published and respected health and medical writer with hundreds
of articles published on the web and in print. Her career as a medical journalist
spans more than a decade, and as a non-medical professional with a wealth of
contacts in the medical profession, she brings a unique consumer-oriented insight
to her columns. She has the expertise to know what’s relevant now, and
how it could affect you.
Guenther Krueger is a PhD Candidate at Simon Fraser University with interests in research methodologies, computer mediated communication and palliative care. With a background in nursing and counseling psychology he has spent the past fifteen years working as a freelance medical journalist. Learn more about 
If you were diagnosed with a life threatening illness where would you look for information?
We tend to think of the Internet as the main source of information on health. But what about other sources? How exactly does online information stack up against information received directly from people or through printed materials?
In order to find out myself and my colleagues designed a research project to find out how online sources fit into all of the ways people obtained health care information. The project was led by Dr. Ellen Balka and involved Dr. Joanne Stephen from the British Columbia Cancer Agency, and my colleague Bev Holmes who is now a PhD Candidate at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Stephen was able to tap into a group of young women diagnosed with breast cancer and we approached them and asked them to share their stories with us.