Dr. Zehra Vicaruddin

MD, LMCC, CCFP, COE
Associate Professor Family Medicine at UofA
Zone Section Chief for supportive living facilities for the Edmonton Zone.

Dr. Vicaruddin did her Bachelors of Medicine, Bachelors of Surgery from Dow Medical College, Karachi Pakistan in 2004 (5th standing in the city). After moving to Canada, Dr. Vicaruddin did her Residency training in Family Medicine from University of Calgary in 2009 with elective rotations in geriatrics and palliative care.

After completing her residency, Dr. Vicaruddin worked at multiple Family Practice Clinics and Walk-Ins both in Edmonton and Calgary until November 2012. Working at East Edmonton Health Center Urgent Care since 2012 where she was a Founding team Physician at the first and only Urgent Care facility in Edmonton dealing with urgent and emergent patients presenting to the facility.

Dr. Vicaruddin developed a special interest in palliative care and care of the elderly after her own mother's diagnosis of a terminal illness in 2011 and her witnessing the gaps in the care of our system. To gain experience in the care of the elderly Dr. Vicaruddin started working at the Misericordia Hospital and Villa Caritas, Edmonton, in 2018 where she provided overnight emergency coverage for Hospitalist, Internal Medicine and Geriatric Psychiatry patients.

In 2020, with the start of COVID-19 when the assisted living facilities and long term cares in the city experienced inordinate influx of COVID-19 cases, Dr. Vicaruddin joined the COVID response team AHS and worked in multiple designated supportive living and long term care facilities during the pandemic, along with emergency COVID units in the butterdome, Kaye Edmonton Centre etc. This made Dr. Vicaruddin realize the importance of palliating patients in their homes as our hospitals did not have sufficient resources or staff to give comfort care to these patients. Since then Dr. Vicaruddin has been performing home visits for terminal dementia patients from admission to assisted living