I hate popularity contests. I never entered the "Homecoming Queen" contest in high school. Along that line, I don't like sports that require the athlete to wear a costume or have their hair done and make-up on. Nope, I prefer quantifiable achievement-based performances. Who scored the most goals? Who swam the fastest? Who had the highest mark? Who won the chess game?

When I learned that the very popular Georgia Straight paper added a "Best Fertility Clinic" to their annual "Best of Vancouver" competition, I honestly shuddered. It feels like a popularity contest or a figure skating competition and I worried that we weren't the most popular because we didn't have the nicest salchow jump in full make-up. After all, how do you really judge a fertility clinic as being the best?

I talked to a few people to see if others agreed with me. They didn't. Other people think it is very fair to have people judge your clinic and decide if it really is offering the best service, however they define "the best." Some people will judge it strictly on whether they got pregnant there. Others will define "the best" as how nice the staff are, how individualized their care was felt to be, or how fast care was provided. It's hard to know how people judge a clinic precisely. That being said, I don't know all the metrics Olympic figure-skating judges use to decide who performed the best three minutes on the ice, but I usually agree with their final assessment. So I'm left thinking there is something valid about competitions like the "Best of Vancouver" event.

Having won, I'm proud. If we hadn't won, how would I feel? I'd be very bothered as I would have no way of figuring out why. While it would not likely happen in such a contest, we'd need voters to explain why one clinic was voted higher than another so the lower-ranked clinic could take that feedback and improve. We do have feedback opportunities through our patient portal and some people email us directly (info@olivefertility.com or btaylor@olivefertility.com), so feel free to let us know what areas we can improve in. How we first handle referrals (it can take a while before hearing from us) and wait time to see a physician are big ones that we are working on now.

Thank you to all who voted us as the best fertility clinic in Vancouver. It means a lot. I know we can always improve and believe me when I say we are trying. We hired a new referral coordinator, Anna Tran, this week who will help people get started with their appointment and testing so care can get going quicker. We are looking for another nurse to improve nurse staffing levels and our lab just invested in new equipment. We aren't static and hopefully if we keep taking feedback and improving from there, we can stay voted the best fertility clinic in Vancouver and beyond.

Here is a video of Dr. Gary Nakhuda accepting the "Best Fertility Clinic award for us. Enjoy!