Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Thursday, August 14, 2008

After spending 20 years in the Middle East working in the medical field as a doctor and a professor, Dr. Derek Younge was happy to come home.

"It's nice to be a doctor in this country," Younge said from the makeshift living room in his new home in Yellowknife. "It's always rewarding to work in your own country and work a little bit harder."

Younge completed medical school in Edmonton in 1977. He then moved abroad to complete his speciality training as an orthopedic surgeon. His decision to move eastward was influenced by his love for linguistics.

"I like learning languages,” Younge said. “English, French, I took three years of Russian but don't know it and I also speak Arabic.”

Younge found that learning Arabic had two extremes to it.

"Spoken Arabic is pretty easy but their written, or what they call the classic Arabic, is very difficult because it's fixed by the Koran," he said. "I used it with my patients. It's nice to be able to speak in their own language."

Originally from Ponoka, Alta., a small town south of Edmonton with a population of about 6,500, Younge found the opportunity of working in Saudi Arabia appealing.

"To be honest the first thing that brings you there is the good money and the lack of income tax," he said. “They have their own source of money because the oil belongs to the government and they pay your housing too, so it's worthwhile.”

He said the opportunity to treat interesting medical cases was great for his progress as a medical professional, especially working at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

"Over 50 per cent of my first cases when I went there in 1978 were old polio," he said. "We saw things that have disappeared here. We saw cases of leprosy, too."

King Faisal Hospital is an 894-bed multi-facility and one of the leading healthcare institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its mission is to provide medical services of highly specialized nature and promote medical research and education programs, including postgraduate education training, as well as contribute to the prevention of disease.

"It would be like having one good hospital for all of Ontario and Quebec," he said.

After spending five years as a medical professor in the United Arab Emirates, Younge decided it was time for a change. He was attending an orthopaedic surgeons conference in Montreal where he came across a recruiter looking for doctors for Yellowknife.

"It was just by chance," he said. "They were looking for locum surgeons. I came last summer and I liked it so much that I applied for a full-time job."

Younge had no problem making the transition to Yellowknife.

"Well I'm a small-town guy so it didn't bother me to be in a smaller city," he said. "I like the atmosphere of the hospital, the casualness of it all."

While the experience in Saudi Arabia was fulfilling, Younge is happy to be back in Canada. So is his wife. Living in a Middle Eastern country, especially one like Saudi Arabia, there are many limitations on the rights of women, was something that was hard to swallow at times.

“She couldn't drive her car,” he said. “In Saudi Arabia they have no bars, no alcohol anywhere, they don't even like music unless it's religious music.

“Out in the public they wanted our women to cover their hair and down to their wrists and ankles. So they had to cover up in a black dress. It's not because they care about us, but it's the influence on their own people. They're terrified of women having power. It's a real man's society. They're afraid to be dominated.”

When his wife, a certified nurse, applied for a job outside of the compound they lived in, she was required to get approval from the man of the family.

“She couldn't even get a job outside the compound without written permission from the man of the family and if she was a widow she'd have to get one of her son's permission. To the modern women, that's a big deal.”

Younge is thankful for the experience and how it made him appreciate the things we have here.

“It's really nice to be back home and give back to the people here.”