BARRHEAD-It has been a long journey for Dr Kevin Visser, literally.
The Neerlandia native travelled tens of thousands of miles pursuing his medical training before returning home to practice family medicine at the Barrhead Clinic.
Visser grew up near the hamlet on his parent's (Rick and Beatrice) farm with his siblings, two brothers and a sister. His eldest brother Ruben owns Stalwart Electric, while his younger siblings brother, Nathaniel works on the family farm and his sister, the youngest in the family, is a nurse at the Barrhead Healthcare Centre.
For elementary school and junior high, he attended Neerlandia Public Christian School before transferring to Barrhead Composite High School (BCHS).
It was while attending BCHS that he started thinking about pursuing medicine as a career.
"I didn't think about becoming a doctor until my friends suggested that I might make a good one," he said.
Throughout junior and senior high school Visser played a variety of sports including hockey, volleyball and badminton. It was the latter that helped shape his life. While attending the badminton provincial championships he was scouted by Concordia University and he was offered a scholarship which he accepted.
"I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life so I kept my options open," Visser said, adding he took Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) as well as some education courses.
The latter of which he mostly dropped after deciding he did not want to become a teacher.
In the end, Visser graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelors of Science. Wanting to travel, he applied to the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine whose main campus is in the Caribbean, specifically Sint Maarten.
"It is the only medical school I applied to," he said, noting he also received a scholarship to attend the school.
Visser added once he decided to pursue medicine, he knew he wanted to be a family practitioner.
As for what life was like living in the Caribbean, Visser admits "it was pretty awesome."
"I got a great education and had a lot of fun. It was between 27 and 29 Celsius with a nice light all year-round," he said, noting his family had an opportunity to share in his enjoyment, visiting on multiple occasions.
However, in his third year of medical school, he transferred to a university in Epsom, England, which is a suburb of London.
"It is where Epsom salt comes from and is home to the Epsom Derby, which is the equivalent to the Kentucky Derby," Visser said.
While in Epson, he stayed in student housing, a multi-story apartment complex on a floor with other international students from countries such as Germany, Austria, Canada, the United States, among others.
Visser said in addition to the medical training and having the opportunity to see many a variety of cases, it was interesting to get a chance to see a different medical system.
In the United Kingdom, medical services are provided in a two-tiered system. The majority of healthcare is publicly funded under universal care. But patients preserve the opportunity and in some cases are encouraged to seek private treatment at their expense. Individuals accessing private services pay through private insurance plans or out of pocket. Physicians are able to practice both the public and private systems.
For his final year of medical school, Visser worked a hospital in the Bronx, a borough of New York City.
"It was a bit of a culture shock going from Epsom, which is a more affluent community, to a hospital in the inner city where the number of security guards outnumbered the doctors," he said.
Visser then decided to take a year off before starting his residence in Nebraska returning to help on his parent's farm for about six months before taking six months to travel and volunteer in South America, with a brief interlude to work at the Bethel Summer Camp, near Westlock, where he met his future wife Jennifer, who is a nurse at the Barrhead Healthcare Centre.
In the Town and Country This Week's, May 19 story where Barrhead's medical director announced, Visser's pending arrival, it was reported, Jennifer is from the Barrhead area, in fact, Visser clarified she was born and raised in Calgary and when they met she was living in Edmonton.
After the year was up, he started his residency at a hospital in Nebraska, specifically Omaha, where he spent a year, before spending two years in Kearny, as part of the rural family practice program. Kearny is a community of about 30,000 but its medical entrapment area is much larger serving about 100,000 residents. Visser finished his residency in June 2019, after which he and his wife decided to volunteer with Samaritan's Purse in Malawi, Papua New Guinea and Bangladesh. The couple returned home shortly before COVID-19 hit.
He said his training in the rural resident puts him in good stead for practising in Barrhead.
"Since I decided to be a doctor I knew I wanted to be in family medicine and that I wanted to practice in a small town, most likely in my home town. I enjoy travelling, but ultimately it is nice to be home," Visser said.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
