Family ties mean no limits for Niagara surgeons
They never initially wanted to follow in their father’s footsteps.
And Dr. Paul Robert said he tried not to pressure his children into pursuing careers in medicine, while he worked for the past 35 years as an orthopedic surgeon, performing joint replacement surgery at the former Hotel Dieu Hospital and setting broken bones of trauma patients at St. Catharines General Hospital.
Paul also worked through the sweeping administrative changes in health care, that ultimately transformed hospital care in Niagara during the past few decades. “I saw it all,” he said. But the challenging and sometimes trying career wasn’t enough to dissuade two of his four children from eventually taking the Hippocratic Oath, too. And for the past year, there have been three Dr. Roberts working at Niagara hospitals.
Paul’s 39-year-old son Chris started his career as an orthopedic surgeon at St. Catharines hospital five years ago, and his daughter Jennifer, 33, began working as a hospitalist at Niagara Falls hospital last year.
“I don’t think either of us wanted to go into medicine,” Jennifer said. “But we always studied a science background, and you kind of start going along the way and finding out areas you want to get into.”
Although the siblings clearly understood that being a physician can be a tough job, they were also aware of the benefits associated with the job.
“Going through challenges, there must be some benefit,” Jennifer said. “There must be something that would draw you to the specialty that makes you so dedicated, that makes you go to work everyday.”
And there’s enough diversity within medicine to allow anyone to find their niche, she said.
“You can really love what you do. We’re all practising medicine, but all practising sometimes very different things. It can be really rewarding.”
Chris said physicians in general “can make a difference in someone’s life.”
But he chose to follow his father’s lead in selecting a specialty, because as an orthopedic surgeon in particular “you can do a great deal of good.”
Jennifer said she instead chose to specialize as a hospitalist — a physician focused on caring for hospitalized patients — because of the variety it offers.
“The types of cases that I see on a daily basis, it’s incredible. Just the sick patients and the disease that I see, and being able to basically be at the centre co-ordinating care with specialists and orthopedic surgeons at the Niagara Falls hospital. I really get a little bit of everything,” she said.
“The learning curve is exponential, really. Sometimes the things I see on a daily basis, you can’t comprehend it. You go home and think to yourself, ‘Wow! That was an intense day.’”
Both Chris and Jennifer travelled to Krakow, Poland, to obtain their medical degrees at Jagiellonian University.
While Chris completed his orthopedic residency at University of Alabama at Birmingham and a fellowship in joint replacement surgery at Western University in London, Jennifer returned to Niagara to complete her residency in family medicine, studying at the Niagara campus of the McMaster University School of Medicine.
During Jennifer’s final year with McMaster, she was placed in the Niagara Falls hospital, giving her an introduction to working as a hospitalist. She never looked back.
She said she never considered becoming an orthopedic surgeon, lacking the physical strength for the job.
“In orthopedics, you have to be a strong as a bull and twice as smart,” her father said with a laugh.
Although Chris initially considered moving to Ottawa to start his practice, he instead teamed up with his 67-year-old father in St. Catharines, starting his career a year before the new hospital opened its doors.
“We’re kind of doing teamwork. Primarily, we’re focusing on joint replacement surgery. It’s a team effort,” Chris said.
He often works alongside his father in the operating room.
“I’m on one side of the table and he’s on the other side,” Chris said. “It’s good. It’s fun.”
“It’s good for him,” the elder Dr. Robert quipped. “He’s giving me orders all the time. He’s the head. He’s the boss now.”
And with two new Dr. Roberts now working at local hospitals to take up the slack, Paul no longer has to work as hard as he once did.
He’s now working about three days a week.
But for Chris, having his father’s extensive knowledge and experience to call on has allowed him to do far more than he’d be willing to take on alone.
“It’s allowed me to have no limitations on the cases I’m doing,” Chris said. “Often, when you first start off you don’t take on the challenges. You start off with the easier cases. But I’ve been basically thrown into it, and it’s allowed me to kind of say no to nothing.”
That includes cases that are so complex they would often be referred to tertiary care centres.
“It’s allowed me to take that on, right off the bat.”