Innisfail's newest family doctor Jesse Christiansen may do life-saving work day in and day out, but don't think his job is like some prime-time medical drama like House or E.R.
“My life is not like one of those shows,” he said. “They seem to spend a lot of time at the hospital talking and hanging out instead of working.”
While the staff at the Medical Clinic are fun to work with, Christiansen says he's focused on putting down roots in town and doing right by each of his patients, not coming up with the perfect scene-ending zinger.
“I mean we have time to chat and do stuff,” he said. “But not quite as much excitement as they have on those shows.”
Christiansen grew up in Rocky Mountain House but didn't always want to be a doctor.
“It was something I thought of later in life,” he said, noting after finishing university he worked at the genetics lab at the children's hospital in Edmonton and found his calling. “The best part about family medicine for me is building a relationship with your patients.”
After doing a residency in Red Deer, where he lives with his wife and one-year-old boy, he set up shop in Innisfail in March.
“You've got a whole new group of patients you've got to get to know,” he said, adding it's a nice change of pace from filling in for another doctor and taking care of their patients. “Once you come to a town and settle down you get to see patients over a long period of time and follow them through their lives.”
Innisfail is not exactly unfamiliar territory for Christiansen, who grew up playing soccer and hockey here as a kid.
“It's a nice community,” he said. “I think the size of it is a nice one where it's not too big and you can get to know the people in the town.”
There are a lot of tips about ins and outs to professional life in Innisfail he hopes to pick up along the way.
“I'm still pretty new here,” he said. “Each town has a different way you access resources within the community.”
Christiansen says there's a lot of opportunity to boost health-care delivery in the Innisfail area, and thinks the development of a Primary Care Network (PCN) would be a great way to raise the bar.
“A PCN is something I'd be looking at,” he said, describing the community-specific health-care group as a team approach to allocating resources and managing challenging issues. “I think it might be a good time to look at that for Innisfail and see if it works here.”
Though Christiansen is a fresh face in town for now, he stresses he's in for the long haul.
“I want to set up roots and plan to stay for awhile,” he said. “You never stop learning.”
