Home care, long term care, family medicine, mental health, palliative care…the Myhill-Jones family have made a mark in many health care areas on the Sunshine Coast. Spanning three generations, medicine seems like an inevitability in their family, as much as it is also a calling. Even the family dog has joined the cause.
For Dr. Brian Myhill-Jones, medicine was a natural career choice. “My step grandfather was an anesthetist, so I grew up never doubting medicine as a profession for myself,” he said.
After completing his education and moving to the Sunshine Coast, he was mentored by Drs. Paetkau, Burtnick and Swan. This June will mark 50 years of medicine for Dr. Myhill-Jones, and he has the added distinction of serving four generations of one family as a physician — he’s even delivered a mom, and years later, her baby!
With this span of experience in local health care, Dr. Myhill-Jones has witnessed “huge” changes over the years, as he puts it. From the development of medical imaging technologies to the arrival of various specialty services, the facilities and equipment available on the Coast has completely transformed, thanks in large part to the community and Sechelt Hospital Foundation’s generous donors.
Now retired from his family practice, Dr. Myhill-Jones came back during the pandemic to support local immunization clinics and continues to work in long term care at Silverstone Care Centre.
Shari Myhill-Jones, RN, serves as Vancouver Coastal Health’s manager of Home Care Services, a department that supported more than 131,000 home visits in 2023. She also oversees the new Primary Care Network (PCN) hub in Sechelt, and will oversee palliative care services at Mossy Rock, the new eight-bed hospice when it opens in Roberts Creek.
“For me, nursing has always felt right, and I believe strongly in giving back to the community,” said Shari. “It’s a spiritual sense of being where I should be, I’m doing the work I’m meant to do. As for my children, they never had a choice,” she jokes.
Indeed, her children Stephanie Fitzsimmons, Shae Goepel and Adam Goepel have all chosen to take up careers in health care as well. Shae, a registered nurse, works in community health in North Vancouver. Stephanie is finishing her degree in psychiatric nursing this month and works alongside Adam, a mental health rehabilitation worker, at Sumac Place — a specialized residential mental health facility in Gibsons.
Between Stephanie and Adam, the family labradoodle Mildred has also become a regular fixture at Sumac Place and sports her own staff badge. Now four years into her own career, “Mildred offers a completely different way of connecting with patients than what humans can provide,” reports Adam. “She helps patients who are really struggling with low mood, and unable to connect any other way.”
And it is exactly this that seems to drive the entire family forward in their chosen fields — the desire to connect and help others in the community.
As Dr. Myhill-Jones puts it, “It’s a wonderful feeling knowing so many people here. They’ve touched my heart, and I’ve touched theirs. It’s a lovely benefit of practicing medicine in a small community.”
