Dr. Robert Calder received the lifetime achievement award at the BC Rural Health Conference in Nanaimo in May. The doctor has been practicing in Osoyoos since 1975. (Dale Boyd / Osoyoos Times)

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

An Osoyoos doctor was recognized by the medical community for a lifetime of achievement in the field.

Dr. Robert Calder received the lifetime achievement award at the BC Rural Health Conference in Nanaimo in May.

“It’s such a satisfying job. Helping other people get better … it’s one of the best jobs I can imagine,” Dr. Calder said. “I consider myself very fortunate because I grew up poor in a house with plywood floors.”

Born in Vancouver, Dr. Calder went to New Zealand for his post-graduate training and returned to start practicing in Osoyoos in 1975. He was a little surprised to receive a lifetime achievement award for his work in the South Okanagan.

“I’m just a humble GP, doing my job in the trenches,” Dr. Calder said with a laugh.

“It’s been an honour for some people to have taken the time to put my name forward. This award has only come because someone in the healthcare field took the time to put it forward.”

Dr. Calder has worked over the years to recruit doctors to come to Osoyoos, worked as chief of staff at the South Okanagan General Hospital and continues to make strides in the field. He is the only doctor in the South Okanagan currently providing medical assistance in dying since the law was changed in 2016.

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“No one else in the two towns is doing that right now,” Dr. Calder said. “I don’t think it’s contentious anymore, but I think it is not something everybody can do, for various reasons. But for those of us that do, I think it is a valuable service. It’s a service I was willing to pick up,” Dr. Calder said.

Looking back on his career, one particularly harrowing instance of lifesaving stuck out. Dr. Calder saved the life of a teenager who was run over by a boat.

“He had a laceration through the middle of his abdomen that involved a lung, a spleen and a kidney. He was desperately sick. I went with him in the ambulance to Penticton and he survived,” Dr. Calder said. “It was an amazing experience, to be able to save someone that sick.”

There was one medical office in Osoyoos when he arrived and he worked as a solo general practitioner in the office which was eventually renovated to fit more doctors. Today there are seven GPs in Osoyoos.

“It is not enough, and we’re actively looking for another one. We have a space in my building for one more and we have somebody who might be interested, so we’re still looking,” Dr. Calder said.

As to what has kept him in Osoyoos all these years, the simple answer is the community.

“You just get attached, your kids go to school and you join the Lions Club and my wife started the first playschool. You just get involved,” Dr. Calder said.

Outside of the doctor’s office, Dr. Calder has completed four Iron Man triathlons, multiple shorter endurance races and many marathons.