From the ER Frontlines

Left: Dr. Paul Johar finishes his rounds and heads to Burnaby Hospital’s SuperTrack.

After four years working in Burnaby Hospital’s Emergency Department, Dr. Paul Johar, is one of many heroes working in the hospital’s frontlines. He’s been practicing for seven years now, enjoys the nine- to ten-hour shifts and says his days are never typical and goes by very quickly.

“I get a chance to see a lot of people,” he shares, “and I think I’m able to help a lot of people that way. I’m in an atmosphere surrounded by health care professionals and I’m able to learn from them and bounce ideas off of them. And that’s really unique in the Emergency Department.”

Also a hospitalist at Delta Hospital, Johar is constantly rewarded by the challenges he faces and overcomes during a day at Burnaby Hospital’s ER. “Burnaby Hospital is excellent! I think that it comes down to the underlying positive attitude of the staff. That’s what makes the hospital an attractive and wonderful place to work.”

But he acknowledges the job of being a doctor doesn’t come without challenges. And when he looks back on a few cases of terminal illness he’s dealt with, he admits that moments he remembers the most aren’t necessarily the patients he saves, but the people he helps in the dying process who face conditions such as terminal strokes.

“Being an ER doctor, at the end of the day, I feel that I’m helping people.”