Dr. Bob Burlin delivered hundreds of Sunshine Coast babies during his 29 years of service on the Coast. And all the house calls he made to check on patients? Not unique, just part of the job.
A retirement party for Burlin, organized by a handful of his 1,000 loyal patients, was held at Chaster House in Bonniebrook on Tuesday, July 28, where he used to make house calls.
"Florence Chaster was one of my fine, old-time patients," Burlin said in a prior interview. "It will be quite an event to be there in the house I visited."
Cheryl Baron was one of the event organizers. Burlin cared for four generations of her family, and Baron credited him as a significant reason why her grandmother was able to remain in her home into old age.
"He's a really special guy. He's like an old-time doctor," recalled Baron. "My grandfather died six years before my grandmother and she was able to stay in the Creek [Roberts Creek]. He'd stop a couple times a week to check on her on his way home."
Burlin grew up in Vancouver, graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1977 and then travelled and worked abroad as a doctor for three years. He returned in 1980 and trained in anaesthesia and then started the hunt for somewhere to settle down.
"I arrived in June of 1980 with my New Zealand wife, well, girlfriend then We were looking for a rural community and looked all around the province," he said.
In the end, opportunities for him and wife Wendy, a nurse, opened up on the Sunshine Coast, which was also close to his family in the city and provided them the recreational activities they enjoyed.
Burlin said family medicine has improved over the 29 years he practised on the Coast.
"In the '80s and even in the '90s, there was no internist so were doing our own cancer care and chemo," he said. "We did a lot more. As things have grown, technology has grown. It's really improved the quality of care and allowed us in general practice to focus on family medicine."
George and Sally Abed can attest to that. At Tuesday's celebration, Sally recounted how Burlin went the extra mile to help her visiting sister, in a deep depression resulting from the death of her spouse, to find the right combination of therapies. Sally said her sister, who is now 94 and living in Alberta, still asks how Burlin is.
George, who had a nagging cough that wouldn't go away, was diagnosed with lung cancer, a cancer that is often found too late to fix.
"He pursued it, discovered it so quickly," George said. "He sent me for biopsies and scans so I'm OK so far. It didn't go anywhere. He was sending me all over the place for tests. He'll always be in my thoughts."
Dawn, Tracey and Robert Hanson also attended the party and have fond memories of the good doctor.
"He's like an extension of the family," said Robert.
"The reason he stands out is because he cares not just about the complaint, but about the person," added Dawn.
The Burlins raised three children on the Coast in between sabbaticals back to New Zealand. Burlin said the highlights of the last three decades were being able to raise his kids on the Coast and spending summers at their Sakinaw Lake property.
Burlin slowly moved away from obstetrics as his anaesthesiology work grew.
"A lot of babies are born in the night," Burlin said, adding that getting up for his job as an anaesthesiologist in the morning made for long hours. "When I got in my '50s, my wife said, 'You can give this up now.'"
Burlin won't be idle for long. After a summer at the lake, he will use a Rural Education Action Plan research grant to study how children with eating disorders in rural communities are referred and treated, what resources their families have access to and ways to improve care.
He plans to start the project locally and then travel to other rural areas of the province to gather information.
"A lot of people have to come together. The frustration I feel as a general practitioner in helping these kids [is what spurred his interest in the research project]. In a fee for service system, we just don't have the time to help these kids," he said. "They're families we know. Where do we send these people? It affects kids and their families."
Burlin had high praise for those around him.
"The staff in my office have been extremely supportive. The patients have been terrific teachers. I learned a lot about humanity from them. My colleagues, I received tremendous support from them. There are a lot of caring dedicated people in [the profession]," Burlin said.
