Sundre's own Dr. Hal Irvine has been presented with Alberta's Family Physician of the Year award
“I feel very honoured and privileged. I never really expected I would ever get an honour like this, so it's very special to me. And I feel very honoured that my peers in family medicine have given me this honour of essentially representing family physicians across Alberta,” said Irvine.
The award, presented by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), is being presented to Irvine at the Family Medicine Forum in Vancouver this week, as part of celebrating Family Doctor Week in Canada.
The college has honoured family physicians in Canada since 1972 by presenting a physician from each province with the award. The award is named after Dr. Reg L. Perkin, who was executive director of the college for 11 years.
There are 10 recipients of the award and they are recognized for achieving excellence in family medicine through patient care, research, teaching and leadership in their communities. Each recipient is nominated by his or her colleagues and all applications are reviewed by a committee of the college.
Irvine was nominated for the award by Dr. Mark Wylie and found out he was receiving it this summer.
At age 61, Irvine is semi-retired and is helping out at the Greenwood Family Physicians clinic when needed. He and his wife Dianne plan to spend half of each year ahead of them in Sundre and the other half at their condominium in Nelson, B.C.
He plans to continue to be available for relief medical work for doctors at the Sundre clinic and also has some work lined up in Nelson over the next few months.
“I tentatively plan to spend six months in each place and probably work about six months of the year too,” he said.
Having started working in Sundre in 1982, he has enjoyed watching the hospital grow and change over the past 30-plus years.
“My biggest rewards come from the long-term relationships with my patients,” he said.
Another rewarding aspect of his career has been delivering second-generation babies of women who he actually delivered 25 to 30 years beforehand.
“I really didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up,” he admitted. “I've always looked for opportunities that would open more doors than what they closed, and medicine certainly offered that.”
While he was in medical school, he worked in Pincher Creek for two months and enjoyed the rural atmosphere.
“I was really impressed with how much the rural doctors could do; the role they played in their community. And really, that was the turning point for me wanting to do rural practice,” he said.
Outside of his career, he has always had an interest in photography and has more recently become interested in motorcycles.
“The reason why I chose Sundre right from the get-go is I've been very impressed with the community spirit here,” he said. “It's a wonderful location. Close to the great outdoors and the mountains and yet close enough to the cities, Red Deer and Calgary, and it's easy to take advantage of what the cities have to offer. But it's really the people in the community and how the community pulls together over issues that has just really impressed me more than anything else.”
As a family physician, Irvine says compassion and empathy for people are important qualities to have. Being able to appreciate what it's like to be the patient is important as well.
“And an ability to listen to the patient and understand what their worries and fears are as well as helping them cope with whatever their medical issues are,” he added.
He admitted there are some challenges with being a doctor in a small town and that some doctors have moved to cities because of that.
“Certainly there's some challenges in that dual relationship, where you have a relationship with an individual as a patient and then another relationship outside of that context,” he explained.
At the same time, he says that aspect is rewarding because he feels important and has a role in the community.
He earned his Certification in Family Medicine in 1979 and became a part of the CFPC in 1989. He began medical school at the University of Calgary (U of C) in 1974 and completed his residency at Queen's University in 1980, with additional training in anesthesia. He received two Robert Hartley Fellowship awards for the study of anesthesia, one in 1983 and one in 1990.
He has been involved in numerous organizations over the years, including the Alberta Medical Association, the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada and he is also an associate member of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
He travelled to Victoria, Australia in 1999 to work as a family doctor and anesthetist for a six-month practice exchange. From 1995-2000 he was a clinical assistant professor at the U of C and became associate professor in 2000.
In 2002, he was recognized as the clinician of the year by the David Thompson Health Region medical staff. In 2009, the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada awarded him a Fellowship of Rural and Remote Medicine.
