by Deb Lee, BRCA Heritage Director and Member of the Calgary General Hospital Commemoration Project
If you were a Calgarian wanting to become a doctor in the early 1960s you had to go away, most often to Edmonton to take your training at the University of Alberta. You would graduate as a general practitioner (GP) after four years of coursework followed by a year of internship in a hospital setting. At that point you could open your GP medical practice or pursue further education in a specialty such as surgery or cardiology.
However, medicine was advancing greatly during this time. Diseases were becoming better understood and new medications, diagnostic and surgical techniques were developed, along with the recognition that patients needed to become more actively involved in their own care. The training for General Practitioners had to be advanced as well.
In 1967 the Calgary General Hospital became one of two sites in Canada (along with University of Western Ontario) to pilot a new and innovative specialty program in Family Medicine. The context of this program was community-based practice, and the focus was on the whole person within their family situation. The intention was to better prepare physicians to care for their patients from cradle to grave, in prevention as well as treatment.
Initially the physician students lived in Bridgeland at the hospital, the married ones in quarters adjacent to the nursing school and singles were housed in a unique setting on the small ninth floor of the hospital. Leading family physicians from the community taught the classes. Students had clinical practice rotations through different departments in the hospital, learning from specialists in Paediatrics, Surgery, Psychiatry, Emergency, etc.
Their first Family Medicine teaching clinic was set up in a house located close to the hospital and local people signed up to be patients. The clinic later migrated to the basement of the hospital. In conjunction with a physician preceptor, the students provided medical care over the course of a year, which enabled them to develop relationships with their patients and see the outcomes of their efforts. The first exam for this new Family Medicine specialty was held in 1969.
The pilot was seen as a success, and it wasn’t long before other local hospitals started their own Family Medicine programs and became part of the new Medical School at the University of Calgary. Many of the graduates of the Family Medicine program continued to admit patients to the General. They delivered the babies, treated the children, cared for the diabetics and those with strokes, and as well as doing their clinic work in the community and service in long-term care settings. They were busy!
Family physicians were seen as the backbone of medical care at the General. They worked throughout the hospital. Familiarity with the specialists allowed for the opportunity for informal consultations and learning, resulting in improvements in care. Continuity of care was optimized as the family physician knew what had occurred to their patients before, during, and after hospitalization. Regular educational sessions at the hospital kept Family Physicians abreast of new developments.
Myron Semkuley grew up close by and could see the General from his kitchen window. He fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a doctor and was the first to complete the Family Physician certification exams. Kathy Savioa grew up on McDougall Road and studied to be a doctor at the University of Calgary. She completed her Family Medicine residency at the General in 1993 and set up her practice in Bridgeland, to the delight of many Italian speaking residents.
Thanks to the innovative spirit found at the General, many doctors have achieved their certification in Family Medicine and continue to serve Calgarians to this day.
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