Adult Metabolic Clinic celebrates 15 years!

The Adult Metabolic Clinic (AMC) at VGH opened its doors April 1, 1999 and was the first free-standing clinic for adults with genetic diseases affecting metabolism in North America.  In 15 years, the clinic has grown to serve more than 1,700 patients and is one of the largest such clinics in the world.

The clinic has celebrated many successes, including the recent announcement of low-protein food funding for patients with PKU and other disorders.  In the clinic, located in the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre, staff proudly display a wall of photos showcasing the healthy children born to clinic patients, many of whom have disorders that are teratogenic* without treatment.  Clinic patients have been the first in B.C. and, in some cases, the first in Canada, to receive treatments for rare diseases such as Gaucher disease, Pompe disease and Niemann Pick C.  The clinic has also developed  protocols used throughout B.Cc for the diagnosis, investigation and treatment of mitochondrial diseases.

The clinic staff are proud to celebrate their 15 years of service and look forward to expanding services to the population of patients with rare diseases in the future.

* of, relating to, or causing developmental malformations