SNOW DAY CLOSURE MONDAY JANUARY 26 2026

Dixie Road Medical will be closed to in-person care on Monday January 26 2026.  It is our clinic policy to close the office when the Toronto and Peel District School Boards declare a snow day.  Our phone lines will be open, and if you have an in-person appointment, you will be contacted on Monday morning January 26 to see if you’d like to still have a virtual phone call instead, and to re-book your in-person appointment.  Urgent same-day phone call appointments will be available.  Thanks for your understanding as we work to ensure patient and staff safety. 

New Patient Enrollment

Some of our physicians have room in their practices to accept new patients.  If you wish to register to become a new patient at our office, please fill out the form below, and return it to us by email at newpatientregistration@drma.ca, or bring your form into our office.  We can no longer accept web submissions for the new patient enrollment forms.  Thank you.

Join Waiting List

Dixie Road Welcomes Dr. Gwynne Schwartz to our Team

On November 1 2025, Dixie Road was pleased to welcome Dr. Gwynne Schwartz as a tenth physician on our team.  Dr. Schwartz joined our practice bringing with her the roster of patients she previously cared for in her solo office in the Hurontario and Dundas area.  Her addition to our practice means more evening, weekend and vacation coverage for the patients of all 10 physicians on our team.  Macy Nguyen, who has worked with Dr. Schwartz at her old office, has also joined us as a full-time medical office assistant to assist in managing patient reception and administrative needs at the clinic.  Welcome to Dr. Schwartz and to Macy!

Saturday After Hours Expand to 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Effective November 1 2025

Please note that since Saturday November 1 2025, our Saturday After Hours clinic hours are 9:00 am to 3:00 pm (previously 10:00 am to 3:00 pm).  As usual, appointments for the Saturday After Hours clinic will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis for registered Dixie Road patients who walk in, or who call in asking for in-person or virtual phone call appointments.  It’s good timing for these expanded hours as the winter cough/cold/influenza/COVID/RSV season ramps up!

Minor Ailment Prescribing with Pharmacist Mena Ibrahim and the Team from MDM Pharmacy at Dixie Road Medical

Mena Ibrahim and his team do offer pharmacy-led Minor Ailment Prescribing for our DRMA patients.

Patients will be able to log onto MDM to book a same-day or next-day phone call or video call with Mena or another team member, or may be directed to do so when calling our office to speak to a medical office assistant (MOA) or a nurse for one of the minor health conditions the Ministry of Health (MOH) deems appropriate for pharmacy-led Minor Ailment Prescribing:

The list of minor ailments includes:  Acne, Allergic rhinitis, Aphthous Ulcers (canker sores), Candidal stomatitis (oral thrush), Conjunctivitis (bacterial, allergic and viral), Dermatitis/Rash (atopic, eczema, allergic and contact), Diaper dermatitis, Dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramp pain), Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), Hemorrhoids, Herpes labialis (oral cold sores), Impetigo, Insect bites and urticaria (hives) Tick bites (post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent Lyme Disease), Musculoskeletal sprains and strains (ankle, shoulder, etc.), Pinworms and threadworms, Urinary tract infections (uncomplicated), Vulvovaginal candidiasis (yeast infection)

Here is the link for Main Drug Mart at mdmpharmacy.com and where patients can select the button for “Virtual Clinic Minor Ailments”:

MDM Pharmacy at Dixie Road

We hope that the benefits of this pilot project for our Dixie Road patients will be:

1. The ability for us to provide more same-day service to DRMA patients between appointments with our physician team and with Mena and the MDM Pharmacy Team
2. Saving more of our urgent same-day and same-week in-office appointments for patients who require physician assessment for more complicated issues.
3. Fast access to an appointment with one of the physicians on our team when Mena and the MDM Team are not able to fully manage a concern and notify us that a doctor’s appointment is needed.

Alpha Lab on Site at Dixie Road Medical Associates

You can call ahead to book your lab appointment at 416-449-2166 ext. 1386 during the hours of Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm (closed from 12:00-1:00 for a lunch hour for staff). Alternatively, if you are in the building for an appointment and your doctor order blood work, a urine sample, or an ECG of the heart, you can do your test on the spot without an appointment.  The lab accepts walk-ins during the open hours.

Please Don’t Use Walk-In Clinics! 

Call DRMA for a same-day, next-day or same-week appointment for urgent matters, and remember that our Friday Night and Saturday After-Hours Clinics Run Every Week with the Only Exception Being Statutory Holidays

Monday through Friday from 8:00 am-8:00 pm our physician team reserves same-day access appointments for our Dixie Road patients.  Our Friday Night 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am- 3:00 pm clinic hours can be accessed by calling in during those hours to secure an In-Person or Virtual Care appointment slot, and walk-in patients will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis as well based on appointment availability.  The reasons we ask you NOT to use a walk-in clinic are:

1.  It is always safer and smarter for your own doctor or another physician on our team to see you.  We have your medical records and a more comprehensive understanding of your medical needs, your medications, and your history of allergic reactions and medication intolerances.
2.  It is unnecessary and costly duplication of service if you see a walk-in doctor, are unsure about their advice, and then call for an appointment to follow-up with us at Dixie Road anyway (this happens all the time!).
3.  The Ministry of Health claws back the value of a walk-in clinic visit from our remuneration for your care and it really isn’t fair that we are penalized financially when you choose to go elsewhere.
4.  We are here to assist you, so please make use of our services.
5.  If you need help urgently after-hours, or if all of our same-day appointments are gone, we strongly encourage you to visit the Urgent Care Centre at Trillium’s Queensway Site at 150 Sherway Drive, open 365 days a year from 3:00pm-9:00 pm.

Thank you for helping us help you!  Our mandate is to provide for your care.

WE ARE HERE TO PROVIDE YOUR CARE WITH A VARIETY OF APPOINTMENT OPTIONS:

Our regular hours are Mon-Fri 8:00 am -8:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am – 3:00 pm.  We are here to meet your health care needs.

We offer both In-Person Care for assessment and care that requires a face-to-face visit to the office and Virtual Care (Telephone or Video Conference Appointments) for health needs that can be safely met that way.  Please call front desk at 905-279-1700 and we will guide you about the appropriate appointment type for your concerns.  Combined care delivery with In-Person and Virtual Care visits is the new normal in Primary Care in Ontario, and throughout Canada.  As of December 2022, the MOH rule is that your physician can offer you virtual care phone or video appointments if they are appropriate, as long as you are seeing your physician in-person at least once every 24 months.

Masks are optional at the clinic, although we do ask that you mask if you are in with infection symptoms (cough, sore throat, fever, runny nose, etc.).  If you are coming in with illness symptoms that could be COVID-19, we ask that you mask.  We no longer do a COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) on patients who have symptoms that could be COVID, but if we feel it is important to know if you are COVID-19 positive for care-planning purposes, we can offer you the test during your appointment.

We unfortunately still continue to have ill symptomatic patients and COVID-19 positive patients attempt to enter the clinic with no mask on, or who object to putting one on when asked.  We need to protect our staff and the patients we are caring for at the clinic.  Please remember that we have very young patients who have not had vaccinations yet, and patients of all ages who are immunocompromised due to their health conditions, or due to other treatments like chemotherapy.  Thank you for your care and kindness of others as we work to care for you.

Please Do Not Email the Clinic for Urgent Medical Requests

While every effort is being made to respond to patient’s email requests, the volume of emails we receive often means that it takes us 1-4 business days to respond to an email.  As such, please DO NOT email the clinic about urgent requests like acute illness symptoms.  Please reserve emails for routine, non-urgent requests, and try not to email us medical information that is actually the content of an In-Person or Virtual Care appointment.  If you require same-day or next-day attention for your symptoms or concerns, please call the office to speak to a medical office assistant or a nurse, and to be properly assigned an appointment in a timely way.

Do I Need COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doses?  Yes!

At this point in the pandemic, with more than 5 years of medical research information available, booster vaccine doses remain the very best tool in the fight against COVID-19.

Keeping your immunity as strong as possible through ongoing booster vaccine doses is the best way to:

1.  avoid getting the virus in the first place, and ensure that your symptoms are mild if you do get it
2.  avoid the possibility of becoming a long-COVID sufferer if you do get the virus
3.  avoid spreading the virus to your loved ones, particularly those who are elderly or medically more vulnerable
4.  keep yourself 90% protected against hospitalization and death 

If you’ve had COVID-19, then your next booster dose is advisable 6-12 months after you last tested positive for COVID-19 infection or 6-12 months after your last booster vaccine dose, depending on how high risk a patient you are for complications from a COVID-19 infection.  Please speak to a member of our nursing or physician team if you have questions about COVID-19 vaccination.

COVID-19 Symptoms are Common Viral Illness Symptoms

If you are on your first or second day of common viral illness symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, fever, cough, body aches, headache, ear congestion etc.) then please stay home and treat your symptoms with common first-line options (Tylenol for fever, warm fluids with honey, throat lozenges, over-the-counter cold and cough products like Tylenol Cold and Sinus or Benylin DM Cough and Chest syrup).  Most of us know well whether we are improving as expected after the first few days of a typical viral infection.  If you have more worrisome symptoms (fever lasting for more than 4 or 5 days, increasing pain in an ear or your sinuses, a really sore throat that isn’t improving and is affecting your swallowing, a cough that is worsening or giving you more shortness of breath, dizziness, weakness, or lethargy) then we certainly recommend calling to book an appointment to be examined and assessed for further clarification of diagnosis and treatment.

If you are really ill with red-flay symptoms that might include high fever, pain, severe cough, respiratory distress, chest pain, dizziness, lethargy, etc., you have underlying medical conditions that put you at significantly increased risk like heart disease, lung disease, autoimmune disease or cancer, then in an Emergency Room visit, hospital staff will test you for COVID-19, Influenza, RSV, etc., to really understand what is causing the significant illness that may require a hospital admission.

Please remember that whether mild infection symptoms are from COVID, or whether they are from a common cold virus, an influenza virus, or the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), we should all be staying home for the first several days of illness so we recover well and avoid spreading any form of infectious illness to others.

Masks Are Still Required at Our Office If You Have Illness Symptoms

Since August 2023, masking for asymptomatic patients is optional at our office.  If you care coming into the clinic with any acute illness symptoms (fever, sore throat, cough, runny nose, body aches, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea) that can easily be spread to others, we ask that you wear a mask as a courtesy to other patients attending the clinic and to our staff.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Verbal Abuse is Not Acceptable

Since the pandemic we have unfortunately experienced a higher-than-ever-before number of situations in which patients are being verbally abusive to our office staff.  This will not be tolerated.  Our primary purpose is to care for our patients and to meet their health care needs.  Call volumes and patient needs are higher than they have ever been before or many different reasons:  patients in Ontario are more vulnerable than ever since the pandemic, patients are catching up on their care needs after pandemic delays, specialist wait times are longer than ever, surgeries wee postponed, and primary care providers are being asked to shoulder more patient care needs at the same time that we also provide vaccinations, mental health care, elder care, and a lot of administrative work to support our patients.   We are doing our best!  We apologize if you have to wait on hold on the phone for longer than usual, but if that results in you getting same-day help for your needs, that’s a good outcome.  Please bring your kindest and most patient communication skills to your interactions with our staff.  We will do the same, and we are confident that everyone’s needs can be properly met.  Thank you very much.

In-Person Care and Virtual Care

The combination of In-Person and Virtual Care continues to the be the new normal in primary care Family Medicine.  If you are seeing your doctor for in-person care at least once every 24 months, you and your doctor can decide together whether a visit should be In-Person Care or Virtual Care.  We are figuring out this new combination of In-Person Care and Virtual Care together, and our doctors continue to follow all of the guidance provided by the CFPC (College of Family Physician of Canada), the OMA (Ontario Medical Association), the CPSO (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario) and the MOH (Ministry of Health).

Please Help Us Manage Your Prescriptions

Please book your routine follow-up appointments as your physician has recommended and let us know with a few weeks’ notice if you do not have enough medication to last until your next follow-up with your doctor.  Ask your pharmacy to contact us well in advance of your medication running out where appropriate.  We receive hundreds of prescription renewal requests per week, and it may take up to 3-4 business days for your renewal request to be processed.  Thank you.

Physician Team Updates

Dr. Annette Ona-Olapo started at Dixie Road Medical on July 11 2025 to care for the patients who were with Dr. Imran Ansari.  If you were previously a patient of Dr. Ansari and have not yet had a chance to meet with Dr. Ona-Olapo, we recommend that you plan an appointment with her to continue managing your family medicine care needs.

Dr. Gwynne Schwartz joined our physician team on November 1 2025, bringing with her the roster of patients she has cared for over many years at her previous solo physician office.  The Ministry of Health approved of the addition of Dr. Schwartz to our team to help us address patient care needs at the clinic, as well as to provide a sustainable way for Dr. Schwartz to practice in the current physician shortage climate in Ontario.