Dr. Lissa Benson began her medical career at Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, where she earned her medical degree. She then relocated to Newfoundland & Labrador for her rural Family Medicine Residency at Memorial University. After graduating, Lissa moved to Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Labrador where she honed her skills as a rural family physician while serving the Innu and Inuit communities along the coast, meeting her husband in the process. Lissa later moved across Canada to British Columbia, landing for a few years in the Lower Mainland where she worked as a locum family physician while primarily focusing on establishing her family. She subsequently moved to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island in 2002 to continue her work in rural family practice and raise her family on the territory of the K’omoks First Nation.
Throughout her 32 year career, Lissa has remained passionate about full service rural family practice, including office based, maternity, inpatient, and long term care. She highly values the patients she serves, listening to their stories and endeavouring to provide care that is culturally appropriate with a holistic focus on physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Lissa has also sought to encourage and support other family physicians in their practice of family medicine. This has led her to establish a new family practice in Comox which now houses four full service family physicians and two allied health providers, and cares for 3000 patients. She has also provided leadership as the Head of the Department of Obstetrics at the previous St. Joseph’s General Hospital, Division Head & Medical Lead for Family Practice at North Island Hospital – Comox Valley, and member of the Advisory Boards of the Comox Valley Division of Family Practice and the Comox Valley Hospital Medical Staff Association. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Comox Valley Division of Family Practice, and is in the midst of a career transition towards full service family practice locum work and further leadership opportunities.
Much as Lissa is dedicated to family medicine, she is equally devoted to her family. She and her husband, Rob, have two daughters and two sons who they have loved raising in the Comox Valley. Each of them is now following their own life path in various locations across British Columbia and Alberta, leaving more time for Lissa and Rob to enjoy all that Vancouver Island offers, as well as travel nationally and internationally on personal and humanitarian trips.