Fanning recipient of Community Focus Award

Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter

 

Dr. Ward Fanning was recently named the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Hal Irvine Community Focus Award. Irvine spent 33 years working in rural family medicine, delivering to his patients the kind of service that he himself would want to receive.
“The award was named after Hal because Hal Irvine epitomizes everything we believe in for rural doctors. He’s focused on the community; he’s there if you need him, sometimes just knowing he’s there to assist was the best thing. It would allow you to still carry on what you needed to do but you knew you had someone in the background to help you out,” said Doug Myhre, the University of Calgary dean of distributed learning and rural initiatives.
“He was dedicated to the community, focused on the community and those are attributes that we want to continue to acknowledge and reinforce.”
Irvine had semi-retired in 2013 and was in Vancouver to receive an award for his hard work and dedication when things suddenly changed.
“Hal was awarded the Family Physician of the Year for Alberta. We were in Vancouver for him to receive the award and he never made it. He had seizures on the Sunday night and the awards banquet was for the Tuesday night,” said Dianne Irvine, Hal’s wife.
He was diagnosed with an inoperable and malignant brain tumour. Hal is still in supportive care, in treatment and is doing quite well. He looks and feels well but has lost most of his mobility and a lot of speech and comprehension because of where the tumour is in his brain.
Rural medicine has always meant a lot to Hal, who also practiced anesthesia, and he became involved in starting an organization for Rural GP Anesthetists.
He first began studying medicine when a good friend suggested it, but it wasn’t until he was in his residency when he knew this was what he wanted to do with his life.
Hal has been the recipient of numerous awards, but this is the first to have been created in his name.
“We were both pretty teary, he felt extremely honoured, and when he heard that Ward had won it, he said ‘oh, well the award should have been in Ward’s name’,” said Dianne.
Fanning has been working in Strathmore for 30 years. He remembers finishing his residency on a Friday and beginning at the Strathmore Hospital the next day. The first person he saw in emergency that Saturday morning is still a patient of his 30 years later.
“The continuity of care really makes the practice of medicine rich,” said Fanning.
“Strathmore is just such a terrific place to work, great patients, great staff, great physicians to work with.”
Communities wrote in to nominate physicians, and the Rural Initiatives Committee met and gave input on who should receive it.
“It was pretty amazing the amount of support he (Fanning) got from all the different letters that came in,” said Myhre.
“We feel he’s done so much for the community of Strathmore, he’s been here for the colleagues, he’s been here for the hospital and certainly he’s done a lot of teaching towards students and residents who have then returned to Strathmore, and then of course most importantly he has been here for the patients and families of Strathmore for 30 years,” said Dr. Ben Sader, who works with Fanning.
Dr. Alison Clarke, who also currently works with Fanning, was a resident with him as well.
“I just found him so inspiring in terms of his love of the medicine as well as the community of a small town and how he just kind of knows his patients so well, has a story to tell of everybody that he sees and he just made family medicine exciting,” said Clarke.
“I came out here to work in a rural setting where you really have the full scope of medicine is so rewarding and to have a mentor like him who is there for you every step along the way, you can ask him any question, he’s very supportive, it’s been great.”
Each year the Dr. Hal Irvine Community Focus Award will be presented in honour of physician preceptors who have practiced for a minimum of five years and who demonstrate the qualities that Irvine showed throughout the life of his practice. Nomination deadline is Dec. 31 of each year.