As a child, he was no stranger to the health-care system. From the age of 12 months to 13 years, he underwent 13 sets of bilateral myringotomy tubes and years of speech therapy. At five, he was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, which affected his hip. “I received exceptional care and my abilities today are a direct reflection of the comprehensive teams I had,” he says.
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When it came time to choose a specialty, Dr. Milne was torn between internal medicine and family practice. She loved the intellectual puzzle of complex cases, but what mattered most was the opportunity to know her patients over a lifetime. “Family medicine allowed me to build lasting relationships,” she says.
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Emergency medicine wasn’t on her radar when she entered medical school. “I didn’t really like the sight of blood when I was younger,” she laughs. But after her first night on call in trauma surgery, she was hooked. The energy of the emergency department - the pace, the variety, the problem-solving - felt like home.
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While in medical school, Dr. Anderson became drawn to cardiology during the first-year block course. His interest deepened after a summer elective in Calgary and a clerkship elective in Baltimore, which confirmed his decision to pursue internal medicine followed by a career in cardiology.
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For Dr. Taylor Wong, medicine was never just about the science; it was about the detective work. “The ability to combine a variety of sources of information, to search, dig and think through the problem, to reason through possible causes and effects and to come to a most likely answer,” he says, was what drew him to the field.
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As a mother of four and a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, Dr. Hernandez chose Alberta for residency. “Western Canada has always been home and my children were already settled in southern Alberta.
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Personal experience also nudged him toward transplant surgery. His grandmother died of liver failure when he was a child. “She would have been savable by a liver transplant,” he says. In Bristol, Dr. Farndon and Dr. Derek Alderson helped connect him to Edmonton for a liver fellowship with Dr. Kneteman. The plan was temporary. The reality became a career.
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My medical story is not the usual one. Perhaps that is why I was added to the list of 50. In my case it has both vocational and avocational elements to it. Notwithstanding, a reader researching medical career paths would find my book on Alberta’s Medical History. Young and lusty and full of Life a worthwhile reference as well, as it outlines the lives and careers of 35 prominent Alberta physicians and their significant contributions to medicine in Alberta and Canada.
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Dr. Robert Perlau’s journey into medicine began in Grade 12, inspired by a love of science, first aid at swimming classes, and, somewhat unexpectedly, the character B.J. Hunnicutt from MASH. “I chose Orthopedic Surgery a bit later, after completing a two-year family medicine residency and working as a rural GP for one year,” he explains. Surgical rotations as an intern drew him increasingly to the field. “It was a natural fit for me since my Dad was a house builder and orthopedics has a lot in common with carpentry.
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