Life Support

I'm the only full-time family physician in Verona, an Ontario town of 2,000 people. It’s impossible to be the kind of doctor I want to be.

- Sabra Gibbens

I GOT INTO FAMILY MEDICINE in a roundabout way. In my 20s, I did my graduate studies in philosophy in the United States. After that, I spent nine years working in management and software consulting, which had me on the road nearly 50 weeks of the year. In 2002, my husband accepted a teaching position at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, so we decided to move to nearby South Frontenac township. At that point, I was 39 years old and had grown disenchanted with my career. I wanted to travel less and make a difference in my community. Even back then, I was reading stories about a shortage of family doctors, so in 2009, I enrolled in Queen's School of Medicine.

I was the only first-year student with kids: ours were five and one, and our third came along during my second year. Motherhood forced me to become really good at time management. For four years, I diligently chipped away at my assignments, forgoing parties and social events in favour of time with my young family. After another two years of residency, I completed my studies in 2015. The year after I graduated, I was recruited by a clinic in Verona, a 2,000-person town a half-hour's drive north of Kingston. I was replacing an older woman who was retiring. Despite being one of just two family doctors on staff, each caring for 1,200 patients, it sounded like a dream job. Early on, it was.

Verona is a tight-knit community. Soon after I arrived there, patients began approaching me in public places, like the grocery store, stopping to say hello and, sometimes, asking me about X-ray results.