Random Access

The image of the old country doctor, who tended to people’s hearts and souls as well as he mended their bumps and bruises and broken bones, is a cliché that you might think belongs in the far distant past.
Wrong.
Just ask Anna Molinaro. She’s one of many of Dr. Ed Davies’ patients who’s trying to figure out how she’s going to cope without him. Dixie Road Medical Associates has been operating in the same place, the original home of one of the founding partners, Dr. Reg Perkin, for 50 years. Dr. Davies, who has been working there for 41, begins a well-deserved retirement at the end of the month.
“He’s not only a good, dependable doctor but he’s very kind and caring,” said Molinaro, who had Davies deliver all three of her children. When her 21-year-old daughter Joanna was killed in an accident years ago, Dr. Davies regularly dropped into her home on his way to work to console her.
“He’s just always there for you,” said Molinaro, who invites the good doctor to family social events. “He’s the greatest. He’s amazing.”
Davies has looked after Don Payne’s family since 1968. “When my wife succumbed to cancer in 1994, he was a great support,” says the 79-year-old. “My daughter was really having a tough time dealing with it and he consoled her.”
When Payne had stomach problems, Davies phoned him at home one weekend after he returned from a seminar in Montreal and told him he thought he’d identified the problem. It turned out he had.
“That’s just the kind of fella Ed is,” said Payne, “calling you up on the weekend. He’s been part of my family.”
Brad Butt, who’s been seeing Davies since he was four or five years old and turns 40 later this year said, “he gives you a sense of comfort, right off the bat, so that you can discuss any issue with him. He’s a very personable guy and very low key.”
When he dropped his plans to do a residency at Vancouver General Hospital to come back to Ontario in 1965 to join the practice, Davies and wife Olwen had to stay with another doctor because there were no rental apartments built at the time.
“I had to make a house call to Cawthra Rd. and I didn’t know where it was,” laughs the retiring doctor, who plans to spend more time gardening, curling, golfing, and working on his stamp collection after he and Olwen return from a boat tour down the west coast and through the Panama Canal.
Family practice is still the foundation of medicine, he allows.
“I’m kind of old school,” he says. “You have to have emotions and a lot of feelings you can share with patients. If they have a lot of sorrow, you have to be empathetic and console them. There always has to be empathy,” said Davies who counts many of his patients among his closest friends.
The old school has its rewards, for both patient and doctor.
“He’s very caring and compassionate and the patients just love him,” said Bertha Anstey who’s worked the front desk at Dixie Rd. for 26 years. “He’s the old-fashioned doctor...very gentle. That’s the family practice that patients are used to.”
Funny isn’t it? How good old-fashioned, common sense human kindness just never seems to go out of style.