A rural doctor in the 1960s had to be flexible. One day he could be flying up the inlet to staunch blood from a logger’s chainsaw accident, and on another day he could be removing a tumour from a dog. Doctors had to be veterinarians, dentists and counsellors as well.  

The Doc’s Side, Tales of a Sunshine Coast Doctor, a book by well-known local doctor Eric J. Paetkau (Harbour Publishing) has become a runaway best seller on the Sunshine Coast.

The colourful and anecdotal book describes the physician’s arrival with his wife Bonnie in the sleepy town of Garden Bay in 1959 to take up a position at the hospital, which was housed in a fine old building on the side of a hill. Because of a dearth of doctors on the Sunshine Coast at that time, Paetkau frequently travelled as far as Langdale to make house calls (remember those?) and to keep office hours in Sechelt.  

The book covers the high points of Paetkau’s life, from his Russian Mennonite background in Saskatchewan through his training years at Mercy Hospital in San Diego to his sabbatical in Germany, the birth of his children and his residency in a marijuana-laced hospital in San Francisco during the 1970s. He and his family always came back to the Coast where he continued his engrossing career until his retirement in 2002. Only one of his children, daughter Carla, took up medicine.

When Paetkau launched his book at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in October, the audience lined up right out the door. Copies are flying off the shelves of local bookstores. The big attraction might be that many Coast residents are familiar with the players. The Doc names a few names, presumably with their permission, and describes his collegial relationships with other doctors, Swan, Inglis and Burtnick. He tells how he met basket-weaver Mary Jackson, the sisters Bergie and Minnie Solberg and Canon Alan Greene.

Though he keeps other names in confidence, these characters also have good stories to tell. Like the woman who should never have removed her shoes in the doctor’s office because her feet stunk up the room. Or the hypochondriac who thought she had married a rich prospector from Roberts Creek and was disappointed to find he was poor.

Some of Paetkau’s stories give a startling reminder of what life was like for women, not so long ago. It was a male dominated profession. Women became nurses or worked in the home.

In one poignant story he relates how a naive female fishing boat worker found herself pregnant because her male fishing partner got into her bed “and did funny things to her.” In this case the doctor and the reluctant father got to decide the fate of the baby; apparently the woman had no say.

It is stories like these that remind the reader how a doctor was often revered — an attitude that has changed considerably as patients have become more aware and doctors are scrutinized by bureaucratic health authorities. Paetkau also offers his views on these changing attitudes in medicine.

Local authors Rosella Leslie and Betty Keller edited the book; it was published by Harbour and is selling for $19.95.

Paetkau will be reading again from his book at the Pender Harbour School of Music at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 15. After the reading, he will be signing copies that will be sold at the event by Bluewaters Books.