‘Model’ family doctor to be honoured
Son of a physician being recognized as the best in Ontario Admirer: ‘He looks at patients as people, not just as patients’
In the late 1950s while living in a rural village in what was then the Soviet Union, Jim Ruderman recalls tagging along with his mother, a general practitioner, while she made house calls to the sick.
“ I remember the respect and affection she was shown,” he said in an interview yesterday. “ It was a very powerful, informative experience. If you show people respect, you get it back.” Today he is Dr. Jim Ruderman, a Toronto family physician like his mother and who, like his mother, is getting back the respect he has shown his patients, students and colleagues over the past 30 years. The College of Family Physicians of Canada is honouring Ruderman as Ontario’s family physician of the year on Friday in Vancouver. Altogether 10 doctors, one from each province, will be honoured for their outstanding dedication to the practice of family medicine.
“ I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t held him in the highest esteem,” said Judith Wolfson, who along with her family has been a patient of Ruderman for 20 years.
“ He looks at patients as people, not just as patients. He should be the model of a family practitioner.” Ruderman, 55, received his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1975 and is chief of family medicine at Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre. He oversaw the merger of the two hospitals’ family practices in what one colleague described as one of the most seamless of any department.
Recently all the chiefs of the hospital’s departments appointed him chair of the medical advisory committee. It was seen as a rare move because usually a specialist, not a family doctor, is assigned the responsibility of consulting with the administration on the doctors’ behalf.
In taking on more demanding administrative duties, Ruderman has never altered or reduced the hours of care to his patients. “No question he’s probably one of the finest family physicians in Ontario,” said Dr. Val Rachlis, a friend, colleague and past-president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians. His bedside manner, his knowledge, his communication skills with his patients, and his ability to enthrall medical students and residents with his teaching have all earned him the honour, Rachlis said.
“ Year after year he wins teaching awards from the students themselves. It’s phenomenal. He just gets the most out of students, gets them all excited about the concept of family medicine.” About two months ago, the doctors, nurses, dieticians, social workers and nurse practitioners at Sunnybrook’s family practice teaching unit threw a party for Ruderman at the faculty club upon hearing he was awarded Toronto’s family physician of the year.
“ One by one people came up to the microphone and would give these stories. By the time they were finished, people were in tears,” Rachlis said. “ It was always about his quality of work and how everyone feels valued.” They only found out at the end of the evening that he’d also won the Ontario award. “ He knew, but I guess he’d kept it secret.” Ruderman, who is married with four children, said yesterday he is both thrilled and humbled by the honour, but feels no more worthy than the physicians he works with. His students and patients, he said, have taught him equally as much as he has them.
“ Family medicine is unique as a discipline. Your patients let you into their lives and because they do, you can learn from them. You really see the essence of people,” he said.
Dr. Carol Kitai, one of his colleagues in family practice who nominated him, described Ruderman as a warm, wise clinician, as well as a fabulous father who is often at the hockey arena cheering on his 16- year- old son Ethan or carting furniture down to London, where his daughters have gone through university.
“ Everybody wanted him to get this award.”