In the age of virtual medicine, Dr. Robert “Bob” Prosser still believes in the value of in-person care.
Even a global pandemic couldn’t stop the now 89-year-old family doctor from ushering patients as needed into his home-based medical office in Oromocto. His face-to-face approach is about getting to know his patients as people.
It’s the way he’s done medicine for more than six decades.
For “Dr. Bob” – as he’s affectionately known – his thousands of patients have never just been medical files. His patients are his friends – and like a good friend, Prosser has helped some of them out during difficult times.
He’s waived out-of-pocket fees, donated a fridge and even billeted patients who needed a place to go. He’s quick, though, to add he’s received as much as he’s given.
“I’m going to miss my patients terribly because they’re my friends,” said Prosser, who retired Tuesday as the longest-serving doctor in New Brunswick after caring for generations of Oromocto-area families for the last 61 years.
Even as the world has changed around him, Prosser’s constant has been medicine. For decades, Prosser worked emergency room shifts at the Oromocto Public Hospital on top of his bustling practice. He also worked in obstetrics and provided psychotherapy to some of his patients.
In recent years, Prosser continued to work through two knee replacement surgeries and even the 2014 death of his wife Joyce, who was an integral part of his practice as a nurse.
But the recent development of neuropathic symptoms convinced him to retire and close his home-based medical office. It served 1,200 patients.
“I have a lot of guilt right now in leaving (my patients) without a doctor,” Prosser said in an interview on the eve of his retirement as his daughter Diana Prosser sat beside him, patting his knee.
“I should have looked around harder for a physician to replace me even though I don’t think I would have found one anyway because they’re a scarce commodity right now.”
Diana – who saw both her parents make sacrifices to serve the community – doesn’t think her father should feel guilty at all. She saw her father work evenings and weekends, driving to rural areas with floodlights to find patients’ homes.
“Your gift to the community has been incredible, Dad,” Diana gently told her father.
Prosser has been “a cornerstone of the Oromocto community’s health and well-being,” according to Dr. Paula Keating, president of the New Brunswick Medical Society.
“As the longest-serving physician in the province, his steadfast commitment to his profession and his patients is inspiring,” Keating said in a statement. “We appreciate Dr. Prosser’s many contributions to medicine and wish him the very best in his next chapter.”
As for the hole leaves, Horizon Health Network is continuing to work “very hard to recruit additional primary care providers to meet the needs of our population, including residents in the Oromocto area,” said Dr. Ash McLellan, the Fredericton-area medical director for the regional health authority.
“We’d like to sincerely thank Dr. Prosser for his many years of dedicated service to patients in the Oromocto area and wish him all the best in his retirement,” McLellan said in a statement Monday.
A life of service
Born in India to a military family, Prosser came by his passion for medicine honestly. His father Robert Gray Prosser – a Canadian expat serving as a colonel in the British Army – was also a psychiatrist.
In 1946, the family returned to Canada and settled in New Brunswick. Prosser’s father would ultimately serve as the province’s director of mental health from 1950 to 1967.
Despite his love of forestry, Prosser, who graduated from Fredericton High School, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and study medicine at Dalhousie University. He’d also serve in the military like this father; he was stationed for 45 months at Base Gagetown to help pay for his schooling but turned down an offer to go overseas following graduation.
Instead, Prosser and his wife Joyce decided to settle in Oromocto where they raised three children, Diana, Lisa and Scott. In their spare time, the pair volunteered in the local track and field club, Girl Guides, and “fed as many people as they could” through their expansive gardens.
At one point, Prosser kept 36 beehives on the property and spun his own honey – a commitment he juggled with a bustling medical practice, a family and his volunteer work.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if you want to live healthy and well, you gotta be part of the community,” his daughter Diana said. “You gotta give.”
‘You saw the whole person’
Messages of gratitude have poured in over the last few weeks as current and former patients of Prosser have learned of his retirement.
In one card, a woman thanked Prosser for taking care of both her parents and her grandmother, the latter of whom suffered a “debilitating stroke.”
“You didn’t just treat their bodies,” the card reads. “You saw the whole person.”
In another card, a patient of 50 years thanked Prosser for his medical expertise and for the gift of his friendship.
Those words have meant the world to Prosser, who flipped through cards and notes in the living room with his daughter by his side. Diana is also collecting patient stories via email – [email protected] – on behalf of her father.
“Every patient he’s ever had he’s been able to put them at ease with some really bad jokes and some good jokes,” Diana said. “He’s a jokester.”
Over the years, Prosser has found the humour in the technological changes he’s witnessed in his career, including the advent of “Dr. Google.” He’s grown used to patients coming in with their own diagnoses after a Google search or two.
Although he’s run a solo practice for decades, Prosser supports the province’s move to team-based medical practices. He can see how it would help reduce physician burnout and ensure patients have primary care access while their doctor is on vacation.
He and his wife Joyce couldn’t get away from the practice often. At one point, Prosser had a roster of 6,000 patients.
“You’ve served the community so well,” his daughter Diana told her father as they looked through cards. “You can be so proud.”
“I was never good at the end of things,” Prosser joked.
“None of us are,” Diana replied.