Why do surgeons choose Medicine Hat?

Brian asks “Why Medicine Hat?” and sits down with Dr. Luke Heinrichs and Tia Heinrichs to explore their journey into medicine, family life, and healthcare in southeastern Alberta.

Dr. Heinrichs shares the challenges and rewards of being a surgeon, the rapid evolution of robotic and orthopedic surgical techniques, and why continuous education is essential in modern healthcare. Tia offers perspective as a nurse and practice owner, balancing her own career while supporting life in medicine.

👉 If you’re interested in healthcare, surgery, medical careers, or life in Medicine Hat, this episode offers thoughtful insight and honest reflection.
Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
01:18 Journey to Medicine Hat
07:07 Life as a Surgeon and Work-Life Balance
11:29 Advancements in Surgical Techniques
15:17 Challenges in Healthcare and Patient Care
19:36 Prevention and Patient Education
21:39 Future Aspirations and Community Impact

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favour. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe. Tell your friends about bring back the porch. And I just remember there was a surgeon in Saskatoon. His name was Doctor King. He, did a lot of arthroplasty. So joint replacements and, you know, he just always seemed to be having fun in the operating room. You know, I could see in his clinics that his patients really loved him and what difference he made in their lives. And, you know, I think, they really like that immediacy of being able to do something and see the result almost immediately. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And joining me on the porch this time, very special couple. We'd like to welcome to the porch, Tia and Doctor Luke. Heinrichs. Welcome. Thank you so much for having us. We're so excited to be here. Yeah, we really appreciate the time to, have a chat this morning. Now, let's talk about your journey here. How did you arrive in Medicine Hat? Because you have been a student for a long time. I was looking on your website. You've three different universities, I think. Yeah. So, you know, I grew up in Saskatoon, so I, did my education there, along with medical school in Saskatoon, at the University of Saskatchewan. And then after my medical school, I applied to a orthopedic surgery residency program in Edmonton. So I, we go through a matching process. So I, matched to University of Alberta in Edmonton. So I spent, a number of years there doing my residency program followed by a arthroplasty. So, like a joint replacement, fellowship. So it's an extra year of training there. And then after that, I was still very interested in, sports injuries and arthroscopic or minimally invasive surgery. So I did spend a year out in Halifax at Dalhousie, working with, the group of surgeons out there, kind of more specifically training on, sports and arthroscopic, and joint preserving surgeries. So, yeah, it's been a bit of a long journey. You know, at the end of my second fellowship, we, I was kind of an unlucky year because, you know, every year is a little bit different for orthopedic surgery in terms of how many jobs are available and where they are. And you know, what they might involve, what the group might be looking for. And you know, it. During that year, though, I, had a few friends reach out to me about a job opportunity and medicine hat, one of the surgeons who had worked here for quite some time, previous, University of Alberta alumni, similar, Doctor Bering, had retired, so they were looking for a replacement. And his practice was a mixture of joint replacements and sports surgery. So it was just a very, kind of good timing, you know, it was a good fit from what skills I had trained for. And, we also liked that we were kind of still in Alberta, but close to home in Saskatoon, but, close to the mountains and things we like to do out there and, you know, so it's just been, excellent fit. And, you know, it's just been a constant positive, surprise to me. I'm. Well, I'm just constantly positively surprised by, you know, the job here. You know, we I'm fortunate, and I showed up not knowing much about the place, but you come here and you walk into the hospital, and it's like this beautiful surgical facility. Like, honestly, you would not find such a nice looking or suite really, in any of the bigger centers I've worked in, you know, in Halifax, there was surgical sites where you feel like you're working in a broom closet. You know, and it's just been very nice. I mean, honestly, there's been so many things to learn into my junior practice, my early years of practice, like learning how to run a practice, all the moving parts to it. But, you know, there's been some great supports along the way. The hospital has been very supportive of me bringing in new surgeries and new procedures that, we can do for patients. And, you know, it's been an excellent group of colleagues that have had the opportunity to work with as well. How's life been for you, too? Yeah. I feel like when me and Luke were going through the journey of looking at different job opportunities across Canada, there were opportunities in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, even still in Nova Scotia. And, I think when we were evaluating where we wanted to put our energy, a big part of it was, work life balance with our family. We have two young kids that are five and seven, and I think us living in Halifax for that year was an amazing experience, but also kind of, isolating and a little bit of away from our family. And it was just a little difficult to travel. So when Medicine Hat popped up as an opportunity, I was super excited. I had heard great things about the city. We have a few friends that are originally from here, and so me and Luke talked about it seriously and I said to him, this might provide us that work life balance that we're looking for, because watching Luke go through his medical training journey, he has sacrificed so much to be where he is today. And I feel like we work so well as a team, and I really just wanted to make sure that we could find that balance. And it's been an amazing city to raise our kids. We're able to drive home, grandparents are able to visit us. I feel like it's been such a great fit and a way for us to kind of finally take that deep breath after so many years of Luke's really, really, I guess, like his training has just been something that I always feel like I'm in awe of him. He's just handled it with so much grace and I'm just so proud of him. Just one day at a time, too. You know, there's always a good woman behind a good man, I see. So you you fit the bill nicely. Think about Medicine Hat, is it? It's very similar to Saskatoon in that the river, South Saskatchewan River, the way the cities are oriented. So it's similar, yet different. A little milder weather. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Saskatoon in the winter time. Yeah. You can get on the golf course here a whole lot earlier than you do in Saskatoon. Yeah. It's a, it's a beautiful city. Like truly a whole different landscape than anything else we've experienced in Saskatoon, Edmonton and Halifax. It definitely is a really special place. I would imagine that with your credentials and your skill, you were heavily recruited. So you had to make a difficult decision when you decided to come to Medicine Hat because you know that I can go to Broadway, I can be a star. Well, you know, it's. Different for everyone. I mean, certainly I had a few other opportunities, but, you know, I think, you know, I had to make this decision together, and we've really, I think it's turned out very well for us. So how did you decide to be a surgeon? That's a good question. Probably on a whim. Oh, really? I. You know, unfortunately, like, fortunately or unfortunately, sometimes you end up, working with certain doctors just along your medical school journey who just have, you know, undue influence for whatever reason. And I just remember there was a surgeon in Saskatoon. His name is Doctor King. He, did a lot of arthroplasty. So joint replacements. And, you know, he just always seemed to be having fun in the operating room. You know, I could see in his clinics that his patients really loved him and what difference he made in their lives. And, you know, I think, I really like that immediacy of being able to do something and see the result almost immediately. And, you know, I, I, I mean, I grew up working on cars and mechanics and tons of side projects always. So I think it's just, you know, it's perfect that I fell into a job where I get to use, you know, hammer mallets and, screwdrivers and drills and power tools make. It sounds so simple. Yeah, well, it often is. I mean, I think we, sometimes tend to overcomplicate the things we do, but, you can really, you know, abstract it down to its basics. It's, you know, just another technical skill set that, you know, again, I feel very fortunate to have a community that supports me doing this type of work. You mentioned some of the, the new advances that are out there right now in surgery. And you were drawing, I think, two sports injuries in particular. Yeah. So part of, like, you know, I operate here with, four other colleagues. So it's a group of five surgeons in town here. We all kind of have our own specialty interests and special skill sets. One thing that I was kind of fairly adamant in actually played into me taking this job was, bringing, you know, a new surgery that's, you know, new to, I guess, southern Alberta. There's a couple surgeons in Calgary doing it, but, it's called hip arthroscopy, where, you know, basically it's camera surgery around the hip that does take some special equipment. And, you know, certainly is a bit of a more challenging, subset of surgery to deal with. But, you know, so that's been one thing that, we are slowly building up in southern Alberta is being able to manage, you know, active young athletes with, tears of the labrum in the hip and addressing that, in a minimally invasive way. The other project, I'm kind of well, I've been working on for the last year is like, I'm, a very big advocate. When I was in of, robotic surgery for, knee replacements, when I was in Halifax, I was lucky enough to spend some extra days working with one of the surgeons out there whose name is Doctor Dunbar, who is, surgeon who is involved in the design team, for one of the companies and their robot. So I got to spend some time and see what he does with, his robotic system for knee replacements and how it really fundamentally changes how we do that surgery and how we, you know, potentially what results we get from that surgery. So, you know, I think the general trend in the knee replacement world has been to involve these robotic technologies. And I think robots are a strong word. I mean, in the simple form, it's basically a camera system. And the cutting device. So such as a saw or a bird that lets you basically plan out a surgery and then execute it with a little bit extra precision, which allows you to do some very interesting things with knee replacements. You know, the latest stats I've heard in the United States is that about two thirds of, certain companies knee replacement are being done robotically. So, you know, in Alberta, I think, where, you know, there's a huge amount of interest around it. You know, I think the government has been very appropriate in approaching it. And making sure that the costs associated with us bringing in these new technologies doesn't become too burdensome. But, you know, this has I would like to this year how the robot here in Medicine hat and really see what difference we can make to the functional results we get from a knee replacement surgery for patients. I was reading this morning. Two I think it's in Sue Saint Mary, Ontario, where they're taking it another step further. Well, the surgeon through the internet is somewhere other than one of the patient is, which is they're stepping out a little further along the line. I don't know if we're ready for that in Medicine Hat yet. Yeah, I, I think that's, you know, I, I've, I've seen that for some types of surgery, I think for orthopedics, it's still like, you know, I for the foreseeable future will still be having to stand in the room and using the knife, but, you know, it's just, again, robotic technology for us in orthopedics is just, essentially a, navigation system that lets you execute a surgical plan with a little bit more precision. But, you know, it's hard to really ever have an idea of, what your future life might look like in practice because, you know, a that was a recurring theme I would hear from some of my older, surgeons that I worked with in Edmonton is that, you know, at the start of their practice, they, you know, ten years into practice, their practice fundamentally changed. So, you know, for all of us, it's really this constant learning, evolving, changing. You know, I'm always curious about what things I'm doing today that in ten years might seem out of date or I I'll look back and say, why was I doing it this way? You know, constant changes anyway. But, it kind of, you know, that's the fun part about it. That's the question I was wondering. Oh, is that because you're so busy day to day? How do you keep up on the new trends and how do you, you know, keep yourselves well versed in what's happening out there? So that's a great question. I mean, it's a complicated thing for physicians and surgeons. You know, I, I think we're often supported in terms of and we actually have mandated continuous, continuous medical education that we have to do to maintain our licensure. But for a lot of us, it's, you know, involves taking extra time out of, you know, away from family and away from practice to go attend a course in another city or, various thing attending conferences. You know, it's important to kind of keep up with those things. And, you know, I try to you every few months get out of town for some kind of conference or meeting or, you know, but fortunately, we're pretty well set up in our field for, everyone's always willing to show you a new device or teach you a new way of doing things. I don't keep it a secret. No, no. So, you know, it's fairly easy, but, it is time that you have to take out of your day to read a paper or, you know, travel somewhere to a conference and, you know, it's, gets busy very quickly, I'm finding. Yeah. Until you're busy, too. You're not just sitting at home looking after the kids. You have something, to go to? Yes, I'm a registered nurse. I work in the NICU, and then I have a private nursing practice in the community. And, you know, I think, the question asking about, like, continuing education, it really does kind of highlight just how all consuming I think a surgical practice can be. When Luke comes home from either a clinic day or the O.R., like, he doesn't just get to necessarily kick his feet up and call it a day. He is looking at research papers, arranging education conferences, messaging colleagues about cases, getting opinions on cases. I feel like it's just a bit of a lifestyle. And for us to be able to support each other and raise our kids, I do feel like the balance we have in Medicine Hat and the flexibility I have with my nursing career does allow Luke to do whatever he needs to do during his workday, which can be very, very unpredictable. It's a team. It is a team. For sure, and we're certainly still figuring it out. Wait times. That's one of the things that's in the news a lot. Do you find you get frustrated sometimes because you have people, you know, need to see a surgeon right away and they need to get their work done, but. Also there are. Others ahead of them. Yeah. I mean, every day, I mean, it's a big challenge. I think, you know, two years into practice, managing how long people are waiting to see me from a referral from another doctor and how long from seeing me. They have to wait. Or how long they have to wait after seeing me for a surgical date. You know, it seems like, there's, you know, some challenges right now in southern Alberta, but, getting to things in a timely fashion because, you know, in general, if I had it my way, I think I would like my patients to wait no more than three months to see me in three months for surgery. And, you know, in that kind of timeframe, I think for a lot of people, they still, you know, seeing me deciding to do something, still feel like they get to make their own decisions about their health and what they have. But, you know, when they see me and I might tell them for some things, it's, you know, a year or maybe even more than a year to wait for surgery with a bad hip or a bad knee. It's a really frustrating thing for people these days. And I honestly feel like, you know, it kind of it probably doesn't feel a lot like they're getting to make their own decisions for their health. At that point. I'm wondering if people ever come up to you and say, hey, doc, you know, my shoulder is a little stiff. Give me a you know what? What do you think? I mean, it's just. Medicine hats. Definitely the city of, drive by consults. Yeah, sure. You know, even a few months into practice, I, noticed my trips to Costco were like, Oh, boy. I'd usually run into a few patients, which is awesome. I mean, but, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a small world in that regard, which is, you know, kind of, learning to just love that, too, is hometown. You know, I appreciate my. And anonymity some days. But, you know, I also love, seeing my patients and how they're doing. So the other side of this that we haven't touched on is prevention. Do you have any recommendations for people that maybe if they've got a condition or they can take steps to prevent, having to come and see you? It's so hard to, so I mean, people see me for, you know, say arthritis or rotator cuff issues or broken bones. You know, there certainly is a whole lot of things that people could be doing. And, I think, you know, my practice is best understood in terms of that we should be maximize everything except surgery before coming to surgery because, you know, surgery has its risks. You know, even when everything goes right, there is risks of something horrible happening. So, you know, it's a it's a good question. There's no simple answer to it. But, you know, I always am a huge proponent for all of my patients to really maintain strength and activity and whatever they can do. And, you know, for some people it becomes very difficult due to pain. But, whatever they can be doing in that regard, prevention gets to be very complicated, because when you talk about, even like a problem, like arthritis, it's multifactorial. So people have, you know, history of previous injuries that might be contributory. They might have, genetic factors, that predispose them to arthritis. You know, there's so many different factors behind it that I don't, you know, I don't want my patients to come to me and feel like they did something wrong, or that they should have done something different so that they wouldn't end up where they were sitting. But, you know, certainly I am a huge proponent of people maintaining their strength and activity in general health and, you know, managing things like diabetes and blood pressure and all these type of things. But, you know, unfortunately, we don't have, a great cure for arthritis these days. I wish you did. Metal and plastic. So, it's, it's a challenging problem because, you know, as we see people living longer and being more active, you know, we definitely see increasing demand for these types of surgeries. When is the best time for someone to seek help? I think really, at any point when they're just feeling overwhelmed with, their situation that they're dealing with. So, you know, there's a lot of things that, a family doctor can help people with, whether it's, you know, just getting basic investigations like an x ray, trying things like injections, trying things like physiotherapy, optimizing other health issues. Certainly, you know, I see referrals at all ends of the arthritic process. So anywhere from people just experiencing lots of pain with relatively mild, disease based on x ray to more severe in general in Canada, we kind of typically for a knee replacement at least, like to wait till someone's arthritis is quite advanced on an x ray before intervening. And, you know, that's that in itself is a bit of a complicated question, but, you know, I don't have an absolute answer, I guess, to that question, but, you know, basically at any time, I would say if someone's just feeling like they're not managing well. Yeah. We are. We do tend to just, well, you know, suck it up, you know, put up with it. You know, I'm not that bad. They delay and people convince themselves that they don't need to see a surgeon or a doctor. So, we just continue on. I guess southern Alberta has some hardy folk down. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, just having Christmas with my family, I can see my dad slowly getting, you know, worse and worse with his mobility and, but, I think he just wants to keep toughing it out for now, and that's totally fine for anyone. I sympathize with your father because, you know, I find now when I get out of a chair, I make the same noises my dad made when he was my age. So it's you know, it's not just how life goes. So the future for both of you long term in medicine that. I'm going to let Luke answer. Hahaha. I think so. I mean, you know, it's interesting getting a couple years into practice and you start to realize, you know, things that you would like to have and things that are going very well and, you know, things you'd like to improve on. And, you know, it's just been like I said, I, I don't see any, end in sight here. It's, it's been great for my family and, you know, great for myself and, you know, very supportive. So, you know, I've been super happy. I, you know, the one piece I would like to kind of involve more is seeing more kind of medical students and learners in the operating room. I've been lucky enough to have some old, residents and, you know, resident surgeons and, medical students actually come down from Edmonton to work with me for a while. And, you know, it's like, that's something I would like to continue to, involve in my practice. You know, we're fortunate enough in Lethbridge, they are, opening another medical school. So I'm going to be involved in, taking on and teaching medical students. You know, I, do have family doctor residents who rotate with me routinely. And, you know, I'd also like to kind of involve some of the residency programs in Calgary of having resident surgeons come join me, because I think that's a really great way to evaluate your practice and also be exposed to new ideas and ways of doing things. And, you know, it's just a lot of fun. You know, I just spent, two weeks in on a medical mission in Ecuador two months ago. So we went down there with a group of nurses, physicians, mostly from Calgary, and did about 50 surgeries on, you know, the needy people and terrible hip arthritis. So that was a lot of fun. And, you know, I just was a reinforcement that, you know, that's the educational piece. And working with the people at various stages in training is like super important to me. So. So being able to. Work with. That mentor. Yeah. No. Exactly. And I think, that's how, how we all learn. And, you know, I think, now at this point, I think, you know, like I said, I think there's a lot to teach myself, through that process. So, you know, something I just kind of want to keep building in here in Medicine hat. That it sounds. Oh. Go ahead. Yeah, I just I love hearing how Luke wants to evolve his practice, and he knows that I love it here, especially as the parent that does all the pickups, the drop offs, carting the kids, the activities. That is definitely mostly my role. And I find it so simple here and so easy, and we have so much extra time at home because we don't have these long commutes. And I just really want to be supportive of Luke building and growing his practice here in Medicine Hat and whatever way is going to give him that satisfaction. And I'm so excited for him to have the opportunity to be able to mentor and, train upcoming medical students and residents. I think you're going to do a great job of that. And well, as you say, we have, one of the best surgical suites anywhere. We have style of life that people like, and I think the future looks good for the both of you and for Medicine Hat. Thank you so very, very thankful for your time here on the porch. Oh, thank you so much. I, really appreciate these opportunities. And, you know, it's great to meet you and have a discussion this morning, but, I really appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you.