CAF Story | “I love going to work” – Dream job becomes reality for Base Surgeon
Video / November 28 2019
Transcript
I was 17 years old, living in Nova Scotia, finishing up high school and a guidance counsellor was saying to me: "Well, I don't know if that's such a good idea." Kind of something to the effect that... "Maybe this isn't something that you're going to be able to do."
My name is Captain Meghan Joiner. I work as a General duty medical officer and I'm the Base Surgeon here in Suffield.
I think I've always been a caregiver. I think that probably starts from when I was quite young and I think that's fundamentally where the motivation comes from is that, I just, I want to help people and I want to make a difference in people's lives. And as a family doctor, I get to do that almost every day.
Originally, I went to the Royal Military College and I did an undergraduate degree in arts in business. And throughout my career as an administrator, I just knew that I didn't want to be on that side of the desk. I've always wanted to be a doctor, but I’d kind of lost sight of that goal.
And then, I was able to deploy to Afghanistan with Colonel-retired Scott MacLeod and Lieutenant-Colonel Will Patton. I saw what they could do and I saw what they were doing for people there and I thought: You know what? I know how to work hard and I can do that. The people that were on that tour with me were the first people to say: "Yeah, you could do this." So, it was very heartening.
So, in Afghanistan is actually when I decided: You know what? I'm gonna put my hat in the ring. I'm gonna apply to medical school. It took me three shots to get into medical school. And then, the army told me: "No, you can't go yet because we still need you to do this job."
So, I was deployed with the Canadian Forces Joint Headquarters as part of the Disaster Assistance Response Team. We deployed directly after the earthquake in Haiti. So, my job was really just to liaise with different organizations that were also in the area.
I came across this American surgery team and they had come with just themselves and their tools. And so, I helped them set up. And I got a phone call in the middle of the night saying: "Hey, we've got a little one here and this little guy is not doing so well. We're not able to stabilize him, we're not able to get him off oxygen and we don't have enough oxygen. So, are you able to help?"
Myself and the logistics officer and the operations officer jumped in a car and we made our way down to where they were. Instead of actually just bringing them a canister of oxygen, we moved the little guy to our location and then, in the morning, he was flown out to the hospital ship that was out there.
It's a simple act. I mean, you're just finding a canister of oxygen. You're just answering the phone call and those simple things can really change the course of someone else's life. It's just something simple, you know, just be ready to serve and to be there when people need you.