New doctor welcomed to Barrhead Medical Centre

After a flight that lasted almost 30 hours and moving twice in Alberta alone, Dr. Novida Pather can finally call Barrhead her home.

The South African doctor is Barrhead’s newest medical professional, and will be working the family practice role at the Barrhead Medical Clinic, as well as in emergency.

Though her 28 hour flight to Canada in December would have been enough of a shock, Pather and her family arrived in Alberta during true Canadian winter weather: a blizzard.

“The biggest shock we got during the move itself was the blizzard,” said Pather. “It was plus 35 when we left South Africa, and -35 or -40 here. It was a big shock to the system.”

The first stop for Pather was Bonnyville, where she spent a three month assessment period required for every foreign medical professional.

“It was a college assessor that’s put in place to basically oversee you in terms of your general way of praciticing medicine, and acceptable standards according to Canadian medicine,” said Pather. “As long as you’re deemed fine according to those standards you’re allowed to continue practicing further.”

After completing the evaluation process, Pather moved to Westlock for about three months. However Barrhead was in the cards for the young doctor, and the family moved to town at the beginning of August.

Now in the heat of the summer, Pather said she is thoroughly enjoying the weather now.

“I hope having been here in the winter kind of makes it easier for the future. We came in the worst weather possible,” she said. Anything is is better than that. The summer has been amazing.”

The long, hot days are something Pather is used to.

Pather did her undergraduate degree at Wits University in Johannesburg, which she finished in 2005. She then completed a two year internship at Johannesburg General Hospital.

After finishing her internship, Pather worked in an emergency department for one year in 2008. It was during that time she made a trip to Canada looking for future possibilities.

In fact, Pather visited Barrhead specifically during her time in Canada.

“At that time we were just passing by. Many years later, we were still feeling our way around for where we would want to be permanently,” said Pather. “It just felt right again, so we decided to stay here in Barrhead.”

However in 2008 when she returned to South Africa, she and her husband moved to Cape Town where she enrolled for and completed her masters in family medicine at the Stellenbosch University.

Her education continued further when she graduated from Stellenbosch University, when she got her diploma in anesthetics.

“From 2009-2013 was just study, study, study. I’m hoping that’s almost the end,” laughed Pather. “But I don’t know. We’ll see what the future holds. I just love it.”

Pather hasn’t been in Canada long, but she said she’s already noticing some major differences between the medical field here, and back home in South Africa. What she’s enjoy most, she said sadly, is having the opportunity to fully practice what she learned.

“It’s hugely different in that you have the access and the opportunity to do that here. I’m so grateful I’m able to do that, to harness all that literature and theory and put it to use,” she said. “Accessibility in South Africa, going between extremes in terms of resource poor versus resource rich settings, is hugely different. As a doctor you struggle with that.”

The high patient volume also causes doctors in South Africa to reach their burnout point quite quickly, she added.

Pather said the seriousness of medicine is essentially the same anywhere. However in South Africa, doctors are often left feeling they wish they could do more for their patients.

“You always have that feeling that your hands are tied behind your back. Patients are coming in and you’re saddened, sometimes they reach you too late,” she said. “It might even be financial difficulties along the way, access to healthcare in certain areas. Sometimes you have to travel 2,000 kms to get to a place to seek appropriate health. Sometimes the ambulances can’t get to you until 12 hours later.”

Now in Barrhead, Pather said she can focus on spending time with her patients. A lot of her time is devoted to learning a patient’s complete background, not necessarily medical. This is something she calls “gathering the patient.”

“It’s so essential, for completeness sake, to fully gather the patient into the situation as opposed to dealing with just one aspect like a lump or a mass that might be coming up,” she said. “There might be a huge amount of other factors coming in there. The patient’s concerns, their needs, expectations, what they believe in. You tie that in with your examination.”

Although she has a scientific focus during her actual exams, Pather said she wants to tie in all factors at the end of the day.

“If they struggle with smoking, or the patient with diabetes who cannot cope, they understand fully what they need to do but cannot actually do it because it’s a case of, I know I should, but can I? Am I able to?” said Pather. “You’re trying to assist the person to achieve optimum results. Information is good in that sense. Providing them and being a support as well is also key to that.”

Pather is accepting new patients and can be contacted at 780-674-2246.