Dr. Richard Darby joined the Hope Medical Centre in March 2021 after emigrating from South Africa in October 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Richard Darby was born in Durban on the east coast of South Africa and attended the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, graduating in 1993. After completing his internship and residency, he joined two other colleagues in 1996 in a private primary care practice offering full service of care. He remained active in emergency care, and he and his colleagues designed, opened, and operated a 30-bed subacute and rehabilitation unit in Hillcrest, South Africa.

He was involved in primary care physician advocacy in South Africa for more than 2 decades and has served as a director on both regional and national structures representing primary care doctors in private clinical practice, advocating for both their economic and professional well-being. He was a member of the peer review committee tasked with peer mentoring and review of primary care physicians. He also served on the tariff negotiation sub-committee that set the tariffs for family physicians as remunerated by the insurance companies.

In 2017 he was a member of the external review committee that compiled the Society for Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes of South Africa (SEMDSA) 2017 Guidelines for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in South Africa.

He has a passion for healthcare information technology and has authored more than twenty articles for the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ), the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Journal of South Africa and the Medical Chronicle covering various aspects of IT in healthcare in South Africa.

In October 2021, he was appointed as a director of the Chilliwack Division of Family Practice where he will continue to advocate for his colleagues in rural practice.

Dr. Richard Darby is honored to live, work, and play on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Stó:lō and Nlaka’pamux peoples.