After dedicating nearly 49 years to caring for those in his community, Dr. John McDonald is looking forward to now dedicating some time for himself, his health and exploring his other interests outside of his career.
The long-term family physician, who has been an integral part of the PrimaCare Community Family Health Team at the Cowan Community Health Hub, will officially retire from the practice at the end of July.
With his time in the medical field coming to an end, the lead physician has recently been reflecting on his journey and what he’s accomplished during his career.
McDonald, who was born and raised in Paris, Ontario, said that he always knew he wanted to be a doctor.
“I was around four-years-old and I must have had an interaction with a pediatrician and thought it was interesting because it really just stuck with me,” he said. “There was never a doubt in my mind that that was what I wanted to do and I’m totally delighted to say that I did just that.”
After graduating from Paris District High School at 18-years-old he soon went off to the University of Western Ontario (Western University) in order to complete his studies and training, and was lucky enough to later get a job in his hometown.
“After I finished school, I actually did a year out in Edmonton, Alberta, and when I came back in 1976, I started working at the old nurse’s residence behind the Willett Hospital,” he said. “One of the doctors there had decided to go back out west and I had the opportunity to jump into his shoes and that’s how I got my start.”
He said that after working there for just over a decade, the Anna Arthur Nurse’s Residence was eventually torn down to make room for the new ambulance station and he and his team moved into Telfer Place.
“When they tore down the nurse’s residence, we were scrambling to find a place to go and at that point, Telfer Place was still just a house. They were putting the community together and building on the additions like the apartments and the long term care, so they agreed to design the house part as a couple of medical offices and a pharmacy,” he said. “I was there for a while until it became a bit too small, but when the Willett decided to reform its upstairs into medical offices, I got an opportunity to help design that and I was there until the hospital system decided they no longer wanted doctors in their hospital as a routine way of using their space and that’s how the Hub was born.”
McDonald said that after years of bouncing from hospital to hospital, he saw early on that the system had to change for future doctors and patients alike.
“At the very beginning, we ran the emergency room with three people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” he said. “We had three active hospitals and we visited them all every day and the system functioned back then, but there was no way that that could happen today and so we needed to modernize.”
McDonald eventually became one of the founding members of the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario (AFHTO) and helped to promote high quality, interprofessional primary care for patients across the province.
“I’m so grateful to have been a part of developing how primary care works in Ontario and, most importantly, in Paris and the County. We were the first group of Ontario’s primary care networks which later evolved into family health organizations, and out of that, we now have this PrimaCare Community Family Health Team,” he said. “From the early 90’s all the way through to now, I’ve been involved in the process at many different tables and I consider that a large part of what I do. I don’t stay just where I am, I’ve always been anticipating for the people in the future and working behind the scenes with the decision makers to make this work.”
After a decade of working with a 14-person campaign team to raise funds, design, and build the 41,365-square-foot building, the Cowan Community Health Hub officially opened its doors in June 2022 and McDonald said it’s his dream come true.
“My dream and aspiration was to have a place where, even if people don’t feel sick when they come in the door, they could still have access to a healthy, happy and open place to be,” he said. “A place where doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, social workers, and everybody else wants to work together. It’s been a great gift to see that dream become a reality and I’m totally pleased that the community, the municipal council and my team could come together to make it happen.”
The Hub, which offers all-encompassing services that meet the physical, mental and health care needs of the community, is now a place for family doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors and psychologists, diagnostic services including blood work and x-rays, mental health services, onsite pharmacy, cardiology, optometry, audiology and government services such as family and children services.
The building also features several sustainable design features, including a vegetated “green” roof, solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations and energy efficient fixtures and equipment.
“The rooms are bigger and we have everybody here really working together; It really is the only place in the County that is quite like this and it was designed specifically for us. The light, sound and the green environmental issues were all taken into account and it was designed that way so that the people can engage with something other than their worries,” he said. “That was our design and we were very grateful to the council, the people and all the donors because it was really a team effort.
McDonald said that seeing his community getting to benefit from not only the resources in the building, but health teams in general, has been amazing and that it’s made all the hard work that much more rewarding.
“I did a lot of internal medical work and medical administrative work, medical politics, medical decision making, and got involved in government committees. I did a lot of policy stuff, like advocating because that’s who I was,” he said. “It’s all about being involved in the system and as one of the foundational elements for the AFHTO, we continue to encourage the government to expand and put all the resources they can into developed teams because it helps people be healthier. It can’t make all sickness go away, but you can make health become more of a priority when people are well. It was all worth it and so seeing something like the Hub come to life, made that last decade of my career really exciting.
After 49 years of making changes and caring for others, McDonald said that he started to realize it was time to look into retiring.
“I had to retire sometime and my health gave me a couple of moments in the past six months that made me really consider it was time. We were looking for new doctors in town anyway and I always said that once we could find a replacement I would start to put that plan in place and so once we secured another doctor, that made the decision easier,” he said. “There’s a lot of life out there and I want to see what it’s like. You get one journey, and I haven’t really taken a lot of time to develop some of the other non-doctor stuff in my life so I’m really looking forward to doing that and focusing on my health and fitness as well.”
Overall, Dr. McDonald said that his career has been incredibly fulfilling and that he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“Developing relationships that are trusting relationships has been a privilege and I’m going to miss it. I delight in the fact that I have some time to look after my health and those different things, but it gets me all stirred up thinking about how grateful I am,” he said. “Having the opportunity to have a relationship with so many people, which is a trusting and a sincere relationship of interaction, expertise and guidance, has been so fulfilling. This has been a healthcare family and even the patients are part of the healthcare team themselves. To have had the opportunity to look after the grandparents, the parents, the children and their children… It’s been amazing and it’s quite a privilege that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
