Physicians working with children, older adults share passion for patient care
By Greg Basky
Regina’s Dr. Abid Lodhi hadn’t originally planned to be a pediatrician. After he finished his medical training in Pakistan, he was waiting on a surgical internship spot. But after a short, chance stint caring for young patients, he was hooked. “I just liked it so much,” recalls Dr. Lodhi. “It’s quite rewarding. It changed my life from there on, when I started working with children.”
Pediatricians and geriatricians care for people at opposite ends of the age spectrum. While Saskatchewan’s Dr. Jenny Basran and Dr. Abid Lodhi took different paths to their respective specialties and have markedly different workdays, they share a common passion for meeting the care A day in the life of... needs of the patient populations they serve. Dr. Jenny Basran developed her passion for working with older adults early on in life. When she was growing up in small town Cabri, in southwest Saskatchewan, Basran’s parents ran the Chinese cafe. “I spent most of my time with ‘coffee row,’ many of whom were older adults who stopped by as many as three times a day.” The seed was planted to pursue geriatric medicine while she was an undergraduate at the University of Alberta. There she had the opportunity to help a physician who was studying confusion in older adults after orthopedic surgery.
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While Dr. Lodhi juggles some teaching as an assistant professor and administrative duties as the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s area lead for pediatrics in Regina, he spends most of his time caring for children. In a regular day at the office, Dr. Lodhi, who’s been practising pediatrics for eight years, sees 20 to 25 patients, ranging from premature babies and newborns up to 18-year-old young adults. On one “typical” day this year (before COVID-19 reached the province), he treated kids with pneumonia, asthma, ADHA, anxiety, chronic abdominal pain, and constipation; he also saw a couple of well newborns and a pair of extremely premature
