By Jim Brown
jim@peicanada.com

 After his 37 years of practice in Tignish Dr Baldev Sethi has discovered a whole new meaning for the words, “house calls.”

During much of that span, when he was on call or even when he was off duty, patients would visit him at his home, sometimes showing up long past bedtime.

It’s all part of the job he has grown to love since he hung his shingle at the Tignish Co-op Health Centre in 1975 after arriving from Scotland, where he earned his medical degree.

But in late April it will all come to an end with Dr Sethi’s retirement.

“He is a wonderful boss,” said Rosetta Doyle, his assistant for the past 26 years.

“I’ll probably cry for a week,” she said.

“I don’t think his shoes will ever be filled,” said Wendy Arsenault, the Tignish Co-op Health Centre’s manager.

“I’ll miss him... and everyone (in the community) will miss him.”

The well-travelled doctor was born in India but spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Kenya.

He is leaving so he can spend more time with his wife and his four adult children, who are scattered across the country.

It will be the end of an era in Tignish for Dr Sethi, who served notice of his impending retirement last summer, to give the community and health care officials in West Prince more time to find a replacement.

His retirement will leave Tignish without a full-time family doctor, at least temporarily.

“I informed them in July...but they haven’t found anyone to replace me,” said Dr Sethi, who also worked in Western Hospital, Maplewood Manor and O’Leary Community Hospital. His job, for much of his career, involved juggling duties in Alberton, O’Leary and Tignish and his departure will create ripples throughout West Prince.

Dr Sethi has close to 7,000 active patient files, patients he sees at his Tignish office, according to Ms Arsenault.

There are also another 3,200 inactive files, she said. And there are other patients, not in those files, whom Dr Sethi sees in manors and other facilities throughout West Prince.

What Dr Sethi believes will likely happen initially is that doctors currently working in Alberton and O’Leary will put in some time at the Tignish health centre, allowing the medical office to be open for a day or two a week. But a full-time doctor will have to be recruited to maintain the current Monday to Friday schedule.

During his 37 years in West Prince, he would routinely log 100 to 110 hour weeks, leaving little time for family or a social life.

Dr Sethi says he was feeling growing pressure from family members to retire and much as he loves his work, he felt they were right. It was time.

“The community have been very good to me and to my family,” he said.

“If there was no pressure I would have carried on” at least for another couple of years, said Dr Sethi.

In addition to visiting his children and his grandchildren in Ontario and British Columbia, he suggests he might take up his love of golf. A hobby he hasn’t had time for up till now.

“I’m not looking forward to it (retirement). But as time goes by I’ll get used to it,” he said.

Dr Sethi’s list of titles and accomplishments are lengthy, including long stints as chief of staff and service on the PEI Medical Society’s board of directors. He also served as medical director of Maplewood Manor. As well, Dr Sethi received one of his community’s highest awards, winning Tignish Citizen of Year honours in 1994.