Dr. Hester Gordon felt the stirrings to return to northern Canada, and found that impulse answered when she moved to St. Paul, through one of her mother’s old connections.
Dr. Hester Gordon felt the stirrings to return to northern Canada, and found that impulse answered when she moved to St. Paul, through one of her mother’s old connections.
“My mom went to school with one of the physicians here,&” she recalled, adding that her mother and Dr. Albert Harmse had lost touch of one another and picked up their acquaintance again on Facebook. When her mother mentioned that her daughter was a physician, and a general practitioner at that, Harmse’s interest was piqued, asking, “Does she want to come to St. Paul?&”
Gordon was born in Africa, but grew up in northern Ontario, where she also completed her university education. For her medical degree, she studied in South Africa, but she was interested in going back yet again to Canada for work.
“I was coming back to Canada anyway, and I wanted to come back to a small town in the north somewhere,&” she said. The job and location seemed to be the right fit, and so Dr. Gordon became the seventh doctor working at the Associated Medical Clinic.
Gordon finds the medical profession a very rewarding one, in the daily interaction with people and the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life. For her, opportunities such as delivering a brand-new baby and seeing the look on a mother’s face makes for “really a rewarding moment.&” The job also stretches her thinking muscles; as she explains, “You’re a detective, you’re solving puzzles, which is also an extra layer of fun in the job.
“You have to be made for it,&” she says of being a doctor, noting with a laugh that doctors deal with “blood, sick people and gross stuff too. It’s not for everybody.&”
And although she, like anyone else, can have bad days on the job, the good days really make up for those moments. The multitude of tasks family doctors take on in a small town, whether it’s working in the clinic, in emergency or assisting in the operating room, makes for a different day every day. “It’s a wide variety of patients, which keeps you on your toes.&”
She’s looking forward to moving into the new Wellness Centre, with her view that a new facility definitely offers an “extra incentive&” to come to work in St. Paul. Although the current facility has served its purpose, it is not wheelchair accessible, the rooms can be small, overcrowded and overly warm and with few windows to lighten the atmosphere. “It is always nice to work in a new facility where you don’t have to struggle with certain problems,&” she said, noting the change will be better for patients in particular.
Gordon has been in St. Paul for a few weeks now, and so far, things are going well. “I’m really enjoying it at this stage. People are very friendly, very open, and very helpful, which is always a plus point.&”
