Contact(s)
Life’s journey rarely comes with a road map and seldom follows a linear path. Orillia’s two newest doctors, both medical specialists, are living proof.
For Brock McKinney, his epiphany came in Kenya, in a large, open room jammed with 50 beds.
“I really got interested in obstetrics when I lived in Kenya for a summer as part of my international health elective,” said McKinney. “It was a real eye-opener for me … I performed my first (baby) delivery in Kenya. It was quite an experience.”
When he returned to McMaster University, he did so with a conviction that he wanted to specialize in obstetrics. “Until that trip to Kenya, I wasn’t sure about a specialty … that was a game-changer for me.”
He also became interested in gynecology and today, the affable Grand Valley native is an obstetrician and gynecologist working at Orillia’s Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital. For McKinney, it wasn’t so much him choosing Orillia as Orillia chose him, he says.
“My wife (Laura) and I were looking at a map, trying to determine where we wanted to live,” said McKinney, who resided in Burlington after attending McMaster for 11 years while completing his undergraduate degree, medical school and residency requirements. “We wanted to be close to cottage country, we wanted to be close to our family and we wanted to live in a small town but a town with a first-class hospital that had a high-functioning obstetrics department.”
OSMH is home to a Level 2C nursery, the highest a community hospital can accommodate – a facility that can care for babies as young as 30 weeks. “We don’t have to send them away, for the most part. We can look after them here. That really appealed to me. A lot of community hospitals don’t have that, so that was a big factor,” said McKinney.
When he discovered Orillia on that map and learned of its first-rate facility, he arranged to complete a six-week elective at OSMH. It was the final piece of the puzzle.
“Working at a community hospital is what I wanted to do and the staff made me feel so welcome,” he said. “There is a real collegial atmosphere … I went home and told Laura that Orillia would be ideal for us. And fortunately, a few months later, they offered me a position here. I am super happy to be here.”
Chris Chan, a respirologist, also took a circuitous path to Orillia. After attending high school in North York, Chan completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto before moving abroad. He attended medical school at the University of the West Indies in the Caribbean, before doing a medical residency at Saint Louis University.
He also did a fellowship in pulmonary disease at Saint Louis University before returning to Canada in 2011 for a second fellowship at the University of Toronto, this time in adult critical care. Along the way, he worked in hospitals massive and small, he practised at university hospitals, a VA hospital in Chicago and then capped his educational experience at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, a trauma hospital.
It all seems a long way from Orillia.
“Well, I decided to come back to Canada because I wanted to be closer to my family, who live in the GTA,” said Chan. “When I started looking for a job, I heard about this opportunity in Orillia. Being close to the GTA was important, but even more important was the opportunity to use all my skills here.”
He said OSMH offered him the unique chance to use his training in internal medicine, to be a respirologist and to work in critical care.
“My role at Soldiers’ is all three of those things and that’s what really appealed to me,” said Chan. “I am an intensive care doctor one week a month, I am a respirology consultant at OSMH, have my own office where I can see patients and I’m on call, at times, for general medicine.”
The quality and breadth of services offered at the hospital was also enticing, Chan said. “It’s a smaller hospital, but not too small,” Chan said. “The skill of the doctors and nurses and support staff here is comparable to the big centres and the environment here is very collegial. It’s also a very efficient hospital, which is great.”
Like McKinney, he said the community has been welcoming.
“I really like it here. It’s a very appealing area,” Chan said. “And I found a home on the lake … I love water sports and being active, so this is a great place for me.”
McKinney agrees. He and Laura, a certified choclatier, and their daughter, Mara, 15 months, have found the area to their liking.
“We wanted to raise our family in a small town, so this is ideal,” said McKinney. “We plan to be here a long time. This is our home.”
And that’s good news – especially for the health-care community. While the Orillia and Area Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee has had success, attracting 13 family physicians and 16 specialists since 2010, there is a need to recruit 15 more family doctors and 15 additional specialists over the next three to five years.
“We are thrilled that Chris and Brock are here and we will continue to work hard to recruit more family doctors and more specialists, which the community really needs,” said Pat Thor, the committee’s project co-ordinator.
Submitted photo:
Dr. Chris Chan, left, a respirologist and ICU doctor, and obstetrician/gynecologist Brock McKinney have recently been recruited to Orillia. The two specialists are happy to be able to use their skills at Orillia’s Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital.