Four generations of families. Over 400,000 patient encounters. More than 1,000 babies delivered. Those are just some of the milestones Dr. Walter Rebeyka has achieved throughout his 46-year career as a family physician in New Westminster.
But it’s the relationships he’s developed with patients that Rebeyka will miss most when he retires and hangs up his lab coat on April 30.
“I'm going to miss telling stories and hearing stories and being involved with people and helping them problem-solve their issues,” he says. “I'm going to miss that involvement; I know I am.”
Born at Royal Columbian Hospital, Rebeyka grew up in New Westminster’s West End — in a house just four blocks away from the medical clinic where he’s worked for more than half of his life.
“At an early age, and I wouldn't even remember exactly when, I just thought: ‘I want to be a doctor,’” he says.
After attending Lord Tweedsmuir Elementary School, Vincent Massey Junior High and Lester Pearson High School, Rebeyka started his quest to become a doctor by getting a bachelor of science in chemistry at the University of British Columbia. When he didn’t get one of the seats in UBC’s medical program, he attended the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, Ireland.
“I started in September of 1971 and finished in June of ’77,” he says. “It was a six-year course. Then I would come home every summer and work.”
Rebeyka “absolutely loved” attending medical school in Ireland, where one-third of the class was Irish, one-third was students from underdeveloped countries, and one-third was students from developed countries.
“What I tell everybody is I received an education and the schooling,” he says. “The schooling was the knowledge and the information necessary to be a doctor. The education was a life experience of hanging out with people, on a very close, intimate basis for six years. There were people from basically all corners of the world.”
After completing medical school in June 1977, Rebeyka was among the 12 students accepted into the family practice medicine program at UBC. That two-year internship program included further study in “the Big 4” — medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, and pediatrics.
In those days, Rebeyka says some doctors would go into family practice for a few years and later do a fellowship in an area where they wanted to specialize. Like other family doctors of that era, Rebeyka did surgeries such as cesarean sections, appendectomies and tonsillectomies — but he always wanted to be a general practitioner.
“I never had any interest other than being a family doctor,” he says. “I just wanted to look after people and help people.”
'The rest is history'
While attending a family practice conference in Vancouver, Rebeyka bumped into some doctors from New West. In July 1979, he began a six-month locum at their office.
“They said, ‘Look, things are working out. You seem to be fitting in. Why don't you just stay?’” he recalls. “So, I thought about it for a bit, and I said, ‘Well, it's working for me; I enjoy this. Sign me up.’ The rest is history.”
And it’s in that location, just a few blocks from his childhood home on Ninth Avenue, where he has practiced medicine for more than four decades.
“I used to go up to my mom's for lunch all the time,” he says of his early years at the office.
Initially, Rebeyka was one of four physicians working in the office.
“It was just humming, absolutely humming,” he says. “Everybody was as busy as busy could be.”
Seeing patients in the office, doing rounds at Royal Columbian and St. Mary’s hospitals, making house calls, and fielding calls around the clock were all part of the job.
“We were delivering babies, so it was busy,” he recalls. “In those days, everybody was attached to their obstetrical patients; so, unless you were away on holiday, you were basically on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
In addition to his patient duties, Rebeyka served as chief of staff at St. Mary’s Hospital for several years before it closed. He was also involved in professional associations, including Doctors of BC (then known as the BC Medical Association) and the Westminster Medical Association.
At one time, five doctors were working out of the office at the corner of 20th Street and Eighth Avenue.
Rebeyka’s retirement marks the end of an era, as all the other physicians have either long since retired or left the practice.
A gift of the gab
From common ailments to rare conditions, Rebeyka has seen it all.
“It’s always something different,” he says. “So, we have absolutely no idea what's coming in.”
Long gone are the days when doctors prescribed remedies for ailments and patients accepted their advice without question.
“We have to give people that opportunity to be the master of their destiny,” he says. “Because the patient, they control the outcome and the narrative in the room.”
Patients may control the narrative, but Rebeyka was the storyteller who helped them navigate their medical journeys.
“As time went on, I realized not only was I a healer, but I was also a teacher,” Rebeyka says. “And one of the ways to teach is by example and by story, by analogy and metaphor; people can relate to that.”
Rebeyka says he used stories and metaphors to explain medical concepts to patients.
“The stories are a way to teach and help people understand,” he explains. “Because to a certain degree, in the examination room, we talk in a foreign language.”
Fancy terms don’t do patients any good if they can’t understand the information they’re being given, Rebeyka says.
“I would say you need to be a little bit smarter after every exam that we've had, or I have failed you,” he says. “I not only have to heal you, but I have to educate you.”
'Flat-out neat'
Watching his patients grow up and seeing people’s lives evolve — that’s been the highlight of Rebeyka’s career.
“I've got a huge number of three-generation families, but not an insignificant number of four-generation families,” he says. “So, I've had the greatest privilege of watching people grow up and mature and develop but I've also had the privilege of watching families evolve.”
That, says Rebeyka, is pretty special.
“That might not mean a lot to some folks,” he says, “but I just think it's pretty flat-out neat.”
Rebeyka says it’s been a privilege to be part of people’s lives, through all their ups and downs, happy and sad times.
Retirement beckons
While there was a time when fewer doctors were going into family practice, Rebeyka is hopeful that is changing. He notes the province has introduced initiatives aimed at making family medicine more attractive, both professionally and economically.
Rebeyka says it’s been comforting and reassuring to have heard that many of his patients have already found new physicians.
Rebeyka is grateful for having had the opportunity and the privilege of being engaged in people's lives for 46 years.
With Rebeyka’s 77th birthday coming up in July, he’s looking forward to hanging up his stethoscope and spending time at home with his family. But he also knows he’ll miss the patients, colleagues and peers, and office staff once he closes the doors to his practice.
For Rebeyka, being a doctor was never work.
“Work is a four-letter word, and most bad words have four letters. So, I've had the greatest privilege, I've never worked for 46 years — I’ve always come to the office; I never considered it work,” he reflects.
“I've had my days, I've had my challenges, I've had my upsets, I've had my joys, but I've never worked; I've always come to the office.”
