Dr. Harvey Albrecht will stop scamming little old ladies as of next Wednesday.
Albrecht is retiring after 38 years as a family doctor in St. Albert, wrapping up a practice that often saw him accepting pies as payment for services not covered by Alberta health care. It was a tactic most often employed with older women on fixed incomes.
"I would say 'You owe me a fresh-baked, fresh fruit pie.' Her eyes would light up," explained Albrecht, 70.
"Two weeks later she'd be back in the office with this pie. It would still be warm. I'd get home with this pie and my wife would say, 'Oh, you scammed another senior citizen, didn't you?'"
Difference maker
Albrecht was a fixture in the media during the late 1990s and early 2000s when he sat on the council of Alberta's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was an outspoken advocate for universal health care and a critic of the government's push toward more private health care under former premier Ralph Klein.
When he first got onto council, it was suggested to him that he not say much at first. That wasn't his style.
"I'm not going on there with the idea of being a wallflower," he said. "If I got something to say, I'm going to say it."
He says he got a lot of flak from Edmonton colleagues for leaking a report to media that outlined health care dangers found by a survey of area doctors.
"It wasn't a leak. It was public stuff that they just weren't going to put out because I don't think they had the courage to do so. For me, that doesn't work," Albrecht says.
"If you hold a belief you should be courageous enough to stand up and say, 'Here's what I think and here's why.' I wasn't always the most popular fellow.
"What I tried to do was stand up for the quality of health care."
Humble beginnings
Albrecht completed high school in Medicine Hat and caught the medicine bug in Grade 12 when he became an ambulance attendant.
"Back in those days it was called grab and run," he recalled. "You got the job if you could see some blood without passing out."
Despite this interest, he was going to become an insurance salesman after high school. A teacher suggested he teach so he got enough of an education degree to get a teaching certificate and taught high school for two years. He loved it.
But medicine called.
After medical school Albrecht spent a year overseeing overnight emergency care at the University of Alberta Hospital. It was fast-paced and exciting but he yearned for stronger relationships with patients.
"Some guy would come in with his heart stopped. You'd get him going but you couldn't follow him again," he said.
After completing his training in family medicine, he and his wife Gail settled on St. Albert as the ideal place to practise because the people were so friendly, he said.
During his career, Albrecht liked to apply his medical skills in different settings while still maintaining his St. Albert practice. For eight years he worked part-time for the RCMP doing assessments of new recruits and injured members.
He also did two stints as a ship's doctor on cruise ships, earning $115 USD per day in cash, plus free trips to Alaska and the Caribbean.
Albrecht isn't retiring cold turkey. He's already started working part-time doing assessments for Veterans Affairs, Canada, which oversees disability pensions for military and retired RCMP members.
"This is just one more phase of life and career for me," he said. "I'm going to work for however long I feel like working."
Time to go
News of Albrecht's approaching retirement has prompted a flood of cards and phone calls to his office from well-wishers, said long-time assistant Joyce Phare.
"All the patients are very happy for him that he can choose to retire. They're just sad they're going to miss such a great doctor."
Albrecht was a rare doctor who would do house calls, right up until last year, she said. He brought warmth, caring and humour to his role.
"He had a very calming effect on his patients," Phare said.
"He's been a fabulous doctor," said patient Mary Edwards, 76, who's been with Albrecht since he started practicing in St. Albert in 1972.
"You could talk to him about anything," she said. "He was just a very caring person. You meant something to him."
Albrecht doesn't subscribe to the tenet that's part of classical medical training, that doctors should avoid emotional attachment to patients.
"If you're going to do a good job, you're going to find out who your patients are, how they think, how they feel, what their struggles are," he said.
While this personal touch made others feel that Albrecht is a special doctor, it's also making it impossible for him to continue.
"It's difficult for me to sit down with somebody that I've known for a really long time and tell them they've got a really bad disease. It's like talking to a member of your family," he said, his eyes growing moist.
"If it's starting to interfere with my emotions that much, it's time for me to go."
Albrecht said he's amazed and honoured at the trust people have placed in him for so long.
"I'm going to miss the people," he said. "I won't miss the diseases. That's really why I need to quit now."
