Yellowknife (July 16/01) - Yellowknife's Dr. Pierre Lessard, 54, has retired after close to 21 years of service in the North.

An education award was named for Lessard in 1990 to acknowledge his 10 years' involvement in continuing medical education. In 1993, Lessard received the President's Award from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada for his achievement in women's health care. Lessard started a committee under the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada to examine heath issues facing aboriginal people.

N/N: What drew you to the North in the first place?

Pierre: I always liked the taste of adventure. The trip to Northern Quebec really touched us. We started looking around to see who needed a gynecologist and suddenly, the hospital phoned and offered me a job.

N/N: How long did you intend to stay?

Pierre: We said we'd give it at least four years. You haven't really given it a chance if it's less than four years. Of course, after a year and a bit, we were hooked.

N/N: How about you Paula, did you want to come here too?

Paula: Oh yes, very much so.

N/N: What's the best thing about working here?

Pierre: The people you work with. The second thing is the diversity of your work. Every patient you see has a problem you have to solve. Your practice is more diverse because you do most components of your specialty.

N/N:: What's the most difficult thing about working up North?

Pierre: I think the isolation. Especially in the beginning, you wish you had a bunch of people to discuss things with. Of course, you keep up to date and you go to conferences, but for the daily things, you practice very much in isolation.

Paula: I didn't really feel the isolation, except for family isolation. We both missed our mothers' dying. My mother died in 1995 and Pierre's died in 1996.

Pierre: Yes, and our families are not that big, but the kids have cousins they haven't met yet.

N/N: Do you think aboriginal health has improved significantly since you first came up here?

Pierre: It depends which parts of the country you look at. In certain areas, things are have not improved much. But the more aboriginals who move into their own health care and take initiative in their own health, the better it gets.

So over the years, if you look at what's happening across the territories, if you look at markers like infant mortality, prenatal mortality, those things have improved. If we look at what we've done up here, we've seen a lot of changes for the better. But it's still far from being optimal and for that, people have to get more involved.

We see more and more aboriginal nurses with our nursing program here, and down south, there are more and more aboriginal physicians. So I think it's slowly improving.

N/N: Have you ever run into barriers delivering health care in the communities as a non-aboriginal?

Pierre: Maybe at first, because you're the newcomer and they expect you won't stay. But after a while people get to know you.

Paula: And the other thing is that people think that any doctor coming up to the North from down South couldn't cut it down South.

Pierre: Yeah, I chose to come here. I wasn't kicked out (laughing). We picked it. A lot of older physicians remember that attitude -- like if you were any good you wouldn't be here.

N/N:: Why are you leaving now?

Pierre: We've been talking about it for the past of couple years. We found the right school for one our daughters, Elise. And the other one, Jocelyne, finishes grade eight this year so she's going to have to change schools anyway. We felt the timing was right. After 21 years, it's time to find some other beginnings.

N/N: What are you looking forward to in your new life?

Paula: I'm really looking forward to Sunday drives -- driving and actually going from place to place. I'm looking forward to that very much.

Pierre: Sunday strolls.

N/N: I guess after 21 years you've pretty much driven everywhere you can go. Did you do a lot of that before you came here?

Paula: Yes, Sundays we always found-time for each other. It was family time.

N/N: What are your plans once you get there?

Paula: I'm going to take up Tai Chi!

Pierre: I really wanted to go do nothing. Because if you go do something, you always have a deadline. When we get there and get settled, then we can start thinking about it. There's a hospital fifteen minutes from where we are.

Acadia University is not very far. But we haven't made any decisions.

N/N: What are you going to miss the most?

Pierre: Basically, we're going to miss lots of people. We have lots of friends and good acquaintances, that's what we'll miss the most.

And we'll miss the weather, actually. We'll miss seeing the ptarmigans and all the other birds. We'll miss the northern lights and nature.