In August of 1970, a 26-year old Mary (“Trudy”) O’Keefe and her husband – William (“Bill”) Fitzgerald – crammed all of their earthly possessions into an old Land Rover and attached trailer complete with a rocking chair strapped on top. The couple embarked on the 7-day trip from Toronto, ON to St. Anthony, NL – a journey made much longer by a stretch of gravel road spanning from Deer Lake to the Northern tip of Newfoundland.

Most people would shy away from such a move. After all, the wildness of St. Anthony was a far cry from the city life of Toronto.

“We always wanted to go North. I guess it was the prospect of adventure in the North,” said O’Keefe.

O’Keefe, who eventually specialized in family medicine, certainly got the adventure that she was looking for. As a family physician, she needed to be able to do everything aside from surgery and midwifery. She became skilled in emergency and intensive care medicine. O’Keefe was also assigned to a nursing station located in Charlottetown, NL. She flew there on Twin Otter planes every 6 weeks or so.

“The planes we used to fly in were a little bit breezy because they weren’t exactly sealed. If you have a pressurized plane, it has to be sealed. If you don’t have a pressurized plane, it doesn’t have to be sealed. The planes would have little holes in it here and there. Small planes can be very scary.”

Between visits, the nursing station along with several other small communities up and down the Labrador coast would phone O’Keefe if there was ever an issue. She wasn’t supposed to be on call 24 hours per day, but they preferred to call her because she knew the patients. These close ties sometimes proved to be a double-edged sword.

“Having somebody die suddenly is very hard – especially when you’ve been there for awhile and when you know the person. While I was interning at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, seriously injured people were brought in. They sometimes died. It was sad, but I didn’t have the same connection with them. That was the difference. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know their family. I didn’t know anything about them.”

O’Keefe – a mother of 4 – explained that the close ties that she had with the rural community of St. Anthony enabled her to have more of a family life in comparison to many of her friends in the big city.

“When I used to do house calls, if I had to do it when I didn’t have a babysitter, I would take my kids along. That would work out very well because the families just loved to see my kids. I’d walk in the door and my kids would disappear with whoever was there. So, in some ways, it was almost easier working in a rural setting.”

By the end of her time in Newfoundland, O’Keefe was working 100 hours per week. This past April, the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC) acknowledged her commitment by awarding O’Keefe with the Rural Long Service Award. The award recognizes physicians who have lived and worked in rural Canada and who have served rural communities for 20 years or more.

O’Keefe currently lives with her husband along the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton. She continues to visit St. Anthony on occasion in order to do locums all the while admitting to still missing it there.

“I’m not really a Newfoundlander, but I feel at home there. I feel very much at home.”

By the end of this year, O’Keefe plans to fully retire. Since medicine was such a big part of her day-to-day life, she will now be able to find time to do other things.

“It’s very important to have something else to do right now, so I’m trying to learn how to bake and I’m trying to learn how to garden. Although I’m not doing it very well,” she chuckled.

In retirement, O’Keefe will return to swimming - one of her favourite pastimes.

“I taught swimming, and that’s what put me through medical school. Swimming is my thing. It really is.”

[Image: Dr. Trudy O’Keefe (right) with husband Dr. Bill Fitzgerald packed up and left Toronto for St. Anthony, NL in August 1970. O’Keefe and Fitzgerald spent nearly 40 years practicing medicine in St. Anthony’s located in northern Newfoundland. In April, O’Keefe received the Rural Long Service Award from the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC).]