Former Sundre physician Dr. Hal Irvine has been recognized for his longtime service to rural medical training in Alberta through the naming of one of five new annual awards from the University of Calgary faculty of medicine.
The Dr. Hal Irvine Community Focus Award will be presented in honour of physician preceptors in practice for a minimum of five years who have “demonstrated dedication, through service and personal commitment to improving quality of life in their community.”
Preceptors are expert teachers or specialists who gives practical experience and training to students.
Nominations for the Dr. Hal Irvine award will be accepted from community members and preceptor colleagues. The deadline for nomination for the award will be Dec. 31 each year with the award itself presented the following May.
Dr. Irvine, who retired from practice in Sundre several years ago, was heavily involved in training students and (medical) residents in rural medicine during his long career in Sundre, said Dr. Douglas Myhre, the U of C's associate dean of distributed learning and rural initiatives.
“We decided that it was time to start recognizing some people and that's why we went ahead with naming it after Hal,” Myhre told the Gazette. “Certainly he was a force within the community and being focused on the community at all times.”
Throughout Dr. Irvine's career he showed that “collegiality and a strong multidisciplinary team are essential to providing the best rural health care,” he said.
“Over his 35-year career in rural family medicine, Hal believed in the value of long-term relationships and cared deeply for his community,” he said. “He was a compassionate and skilled physician that led by example, showing that collegiality and a strong multidisciplinary team were essential to provide the best rural health care.
“It was very important to Hal that he deliver the kind of service to his patients that we would like to receive.”
Dr. Irvine was the 2013 recipient of the prestigious Canadian Family Physician of the Year award (FPOY) from the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Dr. Irvine and his wife Dianne provided input to organizers regarding the new award.
As well as the Dr. Hal Irvine Community Focus Award, the U of C faculty of medicine also recently launched four other new medicine-related awards.
Those include the Interprofessional Education Award, which is for physician preceptors or allied health-care practitioners in practice for a minimum of five years in one community who have “demonstrated respect and educational efforts across professions and disciplines.”
“This award gives a chance, for example, for fire department members to be recognized because of the way they have acted professionally,” said Dr. Myhre.
The other awards are as follows:
• The Early Educator Award in recognition of U of C preceptors from any discipline in the first three years of teaching practice located in communities outside Calgary, who “demonstrate a commitment to and enthusiasm for medical education.”
• The Dr. Ian Bennett Meritorious Service Award, which recognizes outstanding preceptors with “demonstrated educational focus of over ten years, or a single extraordinary demonstration of dedication to medical education.”
• The Dr. Spencer R. McLean Peer-To-Peer Teaching Award, which recognizes residents in any discipline at the second-year level or greater who have shown “both educational efforts across disciplines and by demonstrating the qualities of a caring and compassionate mentor.”
Recognizing rural physicians and other health-care professionals through the five new awards is a fitting way to recognize their invaluable contributions, said Dr. Myhre.
“Rural doctors are not given the recognition of the work they do. We hope that these awards recognize our long-standing rural teaching docs and their legacy,” he said.
“Hopefully the program encourages rural and regional physicians to continue this important work or encourage them to come forward. We can never pay them enough, so this is a way to try and recognize them and honour them for their commitment.”
A Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada since 1989, Dr. Irvine attended the University of Calgary where he earned certification in family medicine in 1979 before completing his residency at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. in 1980.
During his career Dr. Irvine has won numerous awards, including two Robert Hartley Fellowship awards in anesthesia in 1983 and 1990, Clinician of the Year in 2002 by the David Thompson Health Region medical staff, and the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada Fellowship of Rural and Remote Medicine in 2009.
