Sometimes, an emergency can shape the course of your life. Raised in the tiny North Shore fishing community of Wallace, Dr. Peter Blaikie had not considered becoming a family physician until one day in Grade 11.

His father had suffered a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated by a local family physician, Dr. David Forshner, in the small hospital in Pugwash.

“Mom had taken Dad to David’s office, which was next to [the North Cumberland Memorial Hospital]. David sent them to the hospital for an ECG. You had to climb a flight of stairs to get into the hospital; Dad was standing at reception when he collapsed.”

His father survived, and the experience sparked his son’s interest in medicine. “I got to know Dr. Forshner very well after that and spent a lot of time with him, and that made my decision to pursue science and medicine,” said Dr. Blaikie.

Dr. Blaikie studied science at Acadia University, then medicine at Dalhousie. In 1993, he came back to practise as a family physician in Pugwash.

This meant working in the old hospital, which was dated and inaccessible. “The old site was built in the early 1960s,” he said. “There were stairs at both entrances, most washrooms were not wheelchair accessible, the roof leaked, and it was drafty and cold in winter, and unbearably hot in summer. It had served the community well but wasn’t geared for modern practice.”

Dr. Blaikie knew Pugwash needed a modern healthcare facility, both to meet the evolving needs of the community, and to attract and retain new physicians and healthcare providers.

He and his colleagues set out to find a solution. “It took years of lobbying,” recalled Dr. Blaikie. “There were four of us: Barbie Cook, our site administrator; Julie Rushton, our patient care leader; Dr. Brian MacFarlane and myself. When one of us would get discouraged, someone else would put their shoulder to the wheel.”

This advocacy spanned Dr. Blaikie’s career, beginning in 1994 when the old hospital was first slated for closure, through several different government mandates and associated priority changes and delays, until construction finally began on the new facility in 2021.

The new North Cumberland Health Care Centre opened in 2023. It provides urgent, inpatient, ambulatory and primary care, as well as lab, ECG and diagnostic services. Planners consulted healthcare providers about its design and function, which includes wide hallways, bright welcoming spaces, and features that promote and enhance patient care.

Dr. Blaikie says the high-efficiency building has geothermal HVAC and is “built for the future, right down to the type of cabling in the walls, which will be ready for advancements such as enhanced virtual care.” He loves what he can do now in the facility, such as connect with a radiologist to check an X-ray together in real time, online. “The technology we have now – what an evolution.”

Working for positive change also extends to Dr. Blaikie’s family practice. When he started as a family physician in Pugwash, he was a solo practitioner alongside his late wife, Heather, a registered nurse. “She worked on both the admin and nursing side when we started our practice together in 1993.”

By 2008, it was time for a change. In discussion with the leadership of the local health
authority at the time, Dr. Blaikie recognized collaborating with other providers would enable him to provide better care for his patients. He and Heather joined Dr. MacFarlane and a nurse practitioner, with Heather as the clinic’s family practice nurse, to create one of the earliest collaborative practices in the region.

Today, this collaborative practice has expanded to provide care to about 4,000 patients in the community, offering services from two family practice nurses, two nurse practitioners, a social worker, dietitian and pharmacist. “We have great inter-collegial support, better support for patients and it just makes your practice much more enjoyable to know you’re not shouldering the load alone,” said Dr. Blaikie.

He finds being a family physician fulfilling. “Family practice is a career unlike any other. To be involved with your patients throughout the years, with some patients right from the
beginning and some right to the end of their life: it’s remarkable. There’s no greater privilege.”

Dr. Blaikie loves watching his patients grow up and take on roles in the community. “It’s full circle. A little baby I held in my hands at six days old is now Dr. Jillian Gordon, a chiropractor in Oxford I refer my patients to.”

He has mentored learners for years, sharing his enthusiasm with medical learners as a preceptor with Dalhousie Family Medicine. He currently sits on the admissions committee at Dalhousie Medical School and has been fortunate to be part of the work helping to shape the Rural Admissions Pathway, which trains medical students at the new Cape Breton Medical Campus in Sydney.

“Can you imagine beginning in 2031, when we start sprinkling 30 family doctors with five-year return-of-service agreements over Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, how that’s going to benefit people?”

He’s eager for those medical learners to see what Pugwash offers. “Med students have told me they can’t believe what variety they’ve seen in the time they’re here. Rural areas are great places for medical students and residents to learn.”

Looking ahead, he’s excited to recruit physicians for the community. Dr. Liora Naroditsky, a new-to-practice family physician, recently joined his collaborative practice; Dr. Blaikie also wants to attract more physicians to help stabilize emergency coverage at the hospital.

Dr. Blaikie stopped providing emergency care in 2018, when Heather was battling cancer. “Since 2019, when Heather died, it’s been hard. We pushed the hospital over the finish line and now we’ve got the first new grad joining us, and I think getting subsequent physicians will be easier. I’m confident new grads will say, ‘Here’s a place where I can flourish.’”

Helping to usher in the evolution of healthcare in his community has been a highlight of Dr. Blaikie’s career. “When I open my door and walk down the hallway, I think about where Heather and I started – with just an exam table and an office, the old way of doing things – to where we are now. It’s been a wonderful career and an absolute privilege to look after people all of these years.”