Caring for
Hockey Heroes
Dr. Don Chow (BSc’77, Biology)
by Donna Faye
Hockey is revered by many Canadians – the passionate devotion with which they follow their beloved teams and players can approach an almost religious fervour. As one of the sport’s icons, Bobby Orr, famously said, “Growing up in Canada, any young kid’s dream is to play in the NHL and be on a Stanley Cup team.” As a team physician for the Ottawa Senators, it is Dr. Don Chow’s job to take care of these elite athletes. “I always tell the junior doctors, when you take care of these heroes, or any patient, treat them like you would your own mother, father, brother, or sister – then you will never make a bad decision.”
construction on Highway 61. He also worked in the grain elevators, at first shoveling grain spills – a job no one wanted because of the rats – then operating grain-cleaning machines.
The prestigious world of professional hockey is a long way from Don’s early years on his parents’ farm in Thunder Bay. Wing and Sophia Chow ran a large farm with 800 to 1,000 hogs. Despite their backbreaking labour, some years they didn’t turn a profit.
It wasn’t only the pursuit of a degree that drew Don to Lakehead. At the end of high school, he finally asked out the beautiful Angela Wirsching, whom he had admired for years. “We never spoke until I asked her to go with me to graduation. She said yes.” They studied together and both graduated with BSc degrees in 1977. After Don’s first year of medical school, they got married.
Since the family couldn’t afford to put their children into hockey, the kids played for fun on the rink at the Jackpine Community Centre whenever there was ice. Something else the family couldn’t afford was sending Don, the oldest boy, and his four siblings to university. “My dad said, ‘I’ll teach you how to work hard,’ but he told us to get a good education and to become physicians because there will always be sick people who need a doctor.” Don put himself through university, working at some gruelling summer jobs. The summer after graduating from high school, he worked in road
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This tenacity paid off. All five of the Chow children went to Lakehead University and four of them, including Don, became physicians.
He then obtained his MD at Queen’s University in 1981 and, after a residency at the Sunnybrook Trauma Centre in Toronto, decided to specialize in spinal and orthopedic trauma surgery. The young medical resident made an impression on his peers and mentors – he would end up performing whole spinal surgeries himself. “I’d have the surgery done and the surgeon would come back and say, ‘I knew I didn’t have to come in.’”