This week
Still in clinic. Still in scrubs.
Where you'll find her
- Bay Roberts
- Bense Clinic, St. John's
Dr. Felicia Pickard
Practicing general surgeon · FRCSC
Same hands, every visit.
When Dr Pickard treats you, it is the doctor treating you. The chart is hers. The plan is hers. The next visit is hers too. Patients tell their story once. Decisions stay in the same person’s head from one visit to the next. Adjustments are quiet, because someone is still keeping track. That is the only thing she asked of the clinic when she started it. Everything else came after.
Four letters, a long apprenticeship.
What each one was, and what it taught her.
Bachelor of Science
The undergraduate years. Learning the biology of bodies before treating them.
Master of Science
A research degree. It taught her to question and analyze before reaching an answer.
Doctor of Medicine
Med school and the long apprenticeship that comes with it.
Royal College of Surgeons
Canadian fellowship in general surgery. Years of supervised operating before practicing on her own.
FRCSC denotes Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada
Working to create a space that helps patients take back control and confidence.
Dr Pickard
How she tries to work.
An approach in both her surgical practice and private practice.
Listen First
The patient knows their body better than the chart does.
Less, More Often
Smaller doses, smaller adjustments, more check-ins as needed. Quieter outcomes, fewer surprises.
Long Game
Pelvic care and aesthetics both reward patience. The plan is allowed to change as you do.
Plain Language
No jargon she would not say to her own family. Notes can go to your family doctor if you ask.
Newfoundland is home.
Dr Pickard practices here because she lives here. The province is small. The medical community is smaller than that. Patients are not a stream of strangers; they are people she will see again, at a local restaurant or a wedding or the grocery store. She did not start the clinic to grow it. She started it because she saw an unmet need in her rural community, with many patients suffering in silence from urinary Incontinence and pelvic floor weakness with few resources available to them.
Doctor. Mother. Wife.
The person who walks into the operating room is the same one who packs school lunches and attends her kids swimming lessons. The life outside of medicine is not a competing thing. It is the reason there is medicine in the first place. It also means she has been on the patient side of the desk. The waiting. The not-knowing. The wanting to feel a bit more like yourself again. None of that is theoretical to her.
A note on the clinic
I started Spruce Ridge Wellness to bring this new technology, the Emsella chair, to NL. To help the patients and friends I was seeing suffer with pelvic floor weakness with few options available in our area.
Dr Pickard
Sit down with Dr Pickard.
Bring your questions. We talk through what is bothering you and what the options are. Whatever you decide is up to you.