Reg L. Perkin Award honouring the 1997 Family Physician of the Year

(sponsored by JANSSEN-ORTHO Inc.)

Saskatchewan's Dr. John Shewchuk is Canada's 1997 Family Physician of the Year. He's much like the rural and community physicians of 50 years ago, who traditionally went away to medical school sustained by the dream that one day they would practise their craft among lifelong friends and neighbours.

Dr. Shewchuk, 47, practises in a partnership in the small rural community of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, which is located at the end of a 140-mile dogleg northeast of Saskatoon. It's less than an hour's drive from the equally small town of Hafford, where he was once one of the town's most admired high school scholars.

"I had my first thoughts about medicine as a career while in high school," he says, "mostly because of the example set by a local family doctor. He just seemed to me to be the kind of person I wanted to be like.

"That idea sort of percolated in the back of my mind while I was at the University of Saskatchewan, where I had enrolled as a science major, and when it came time to begin making some career decisions, it just seemed to me to be a natural path to follow."

Dr. Shewchuk received his M.D. in 1976 from the university's College of Medicine, earning a string of honours along the way that included the prestigious Lindsay Gold Medal for academic excellence and the school's Silver Medal in Surgery. Within five years of his graduation he was named an associate professor on the medical school staff, where he's still helping to infuse future generations of physicians with his novel belief of medicine as a highly interpersonal art form. 

"People, puzzles and mysteries have always fascinated me," says Dr. Shewchuk," and there's really nothing more alluring than the unpredictable unknowns that constitute much of the diagnosis and treatment of people's health problems.

"I also realized," he adds, "that getting my basic M.D. degree could be a springboard to a whole host of different opportunities. The clincher for me, though, was that the horizon was virtually limitless. I realized I could, if I opted to, practise in almost any area of medicine that focused on problems that interested or challenged me. That was very, very appealing."

The doctor originally arrived in Tisdale, "green as grass" he says, with a loose longer-term plan to practise family medicine for a few years, and then to sub-specialize.

"It didn't take long for me to realize that I really belonged here; that I was making a difference in some people's lives; and that I was home," he says with a laugh, "and how can you leave home when you're needed? Besides, I was happy, so there was no need to move along."

"As a physician," he says, "I see myself as a one-on-one researcher of the patient's dilemma, as an investigator of what's gone wrong, and as the identifier of both the problem and the possible solution. Once that's been resolved, then the healing side comes into play, where I have an opportunity to apply a blend of knowledge and experience to the problem, and help the patient to become well."

The upheaval which exists in Canada's healthcare system today is disturbing to the doctor; he's not entirely sure that it's headed in an appropriate direction.

"My partners (three physician brothers who trained in South Africa and another Manitoba -trained MD) spent several years building what we believed was a superior standard of care for the people in our community," he says, "but the trend in health care funding and direction seemed determined to change that for some clearly undefined `better good', and that made us very uncomfortable.

"Those changes", he says, " brought out an undiscovered streak of obstinacy in the partners. For us, coping with health care reform has really boiled down to making a couple of simple decisions that we're all in agreement with: we weren't going to let 20 years of hard work be torn down or tossed aside without proof that something equally effective or better was waiting in the wings; and we weren't going to reduce the standard of health care we were providing.

"As health care providers," he says, "we're only a small minority in the system, and no matter how vocal we get, it's difficult to foster change, or to stay the hand of what some seem to think is `progress'. It's different when entire communities become alarmed and begin to express their opinion, because they're large voter groups who can hold people accountable for their decisions."

Tisdale's only hospital, a 24-bed facility, is relatively new; it was built in 1993, just prior to the first round of major health care cuts, and is a major source of pride in the community. Although small by big-city standards, it has a two-bed combined intensive care and cardiac care unit, and one of the few exercise stress testing facilities located outside a teaching hospital anywhere in Canada.

"Cardiology has been an avocation of mine since my medical school days," says Dr. Shewchuk, "and over the years I've found myself more and more involved in treating the cardiac patients in our community. We have reasonably accessible access to most the specialists our patients require, but there's still an important need for local cardiac care that offers both a stabilization and preventive care component. It's all part of our fundamental plan for total community care, which is so essential to rural communities like ours."

Looking to the future of health care in rural Saskatchewan, Dr. Shewchuk sees the greatest and fastest-growing need arising in nursing home care for the elderly.

"We have an aging population," he says, "and much of their care today is being provided through a patchwork of home care and community and social services. Despite what we think are almost heroic efforts on the part of everyone, it's a battle that the current system can't win; they'll always be behind the service delivery curve."

Despite his concerns about the future, Dr. Shewchuk is very definitely a keeper-of-the-faith, and is in medicine for the long haul. 

"Who doesn't think about retirement?" he says with a laugh. "I do from time to time, but that's still a long way down the road for me. Despite the problems we're facing, and the obstacles that continually seem to be put between patients and their access to good, fundamental health care, I still enjoy what I do enormously. I'm having a good time doing work that I love among people I care about, in association with health professionals that I hold in very high regard. What's to retire from?"

When he's not practising medicine or searching for new ways to cope with bureaucratic obstacles, John Shewchuk enjoys life with his family–his wife, Lorraine, and children, Jeff, 17, and Lindsay, 20. 

For more information, please contact:

Leslie Challis
Communications officer, CFPC
(905) 629-0900 X 303