Happy Father's Day!!

Well, as other kids abroad are doing today, I am certainly thinking of my dad - who is working in the NICU on this Father's Day.

I can't do justice here to the admiration & love I have for him but at the risk of embarassing him (and boring other readers) I will try. Both being pediatricians, we share a special bond above the normal father-daughter relationship.

When I started in medicine, I gained a whole new respect for how people outside the family saw him - as a University of Calgary med student and then pediatrics resident, people from every part of the hospital took pains to tell me how much they admired my dad, and how well liked he is.

The NICU is a scary place for most residents - the kids are so sick, the parents anxious and stressed out, and the nurses a force to be reckoned with. At the Foothills NICU though I had an unfair advantage over my colleagues - being Dr Sauve's daughter sure gave me a leg up. How could his kid be anything but awesome? (Well... ) The nurses got a kick out of writing entries in the chart like "Pt. has fever. Dr Sauve junior aware".

I went to Australia thinking that I could be just an ordinary peds registrar. Imagine my surprise when the first thing my new boss said to me was, not hello, not welcome here, but "How is Reg doing, anyhow?"

My first Canadian Pediatric Society conferences were marked primarily with being Reg's daughter too - though now the tides are turning and he's starting to be known as "Dr Sauve's father" in the international health circles!

My dad is so liked is that he is intelligent, wise, kind, thoughtful. I only hope I can live up to his example at work and at home.

My dad isn't as adventurous as I, and I know I have contributed to his quota of grey hairs over the years. Yet he always supports me in what I want to do even if it worries him. From sailing to the South Pacific, to moving to Africa, he is always supportive and even joins me for the adventure! I've been lucky to have him come visit me in the Pacific, Australia, South America and Africa. (Not to mention he was one of the only people who braved the murder capital of America to visit me!).

I hope you all have had a good Father's Day weekend.

Laura