Dr. Robert Butt and Dr. Gerald Warren have each dedicated many, many years of service as part of the medical community in Corner Brook.
Butt, a surgeon of 55 years said he was both surprised and pleased to be honoured.
“It indicates somebody holds me in high regard,” he said.
Butt was born in St. John’s in 1930, which he said with a laugh “sort of gives me townie status.” He grew up in Badger and completed his last year of high school in Grand Falls in order to be able to take courses in French, physics and chemistry.
From there he did his pre-med at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., followed by a medical degree at McGill University in Montreal in 1954. He then interned in St. John, N.B., worked at the Montreal Royal Victoria Hospital, where he met his wife Connie, went to the University of British Columbia for a year of teaching and research and then in 1958, as was “common practice in the game,” travelled overseas to study trauma at the
Birmingham Accident Hospital in Birmingham, England.
“That was busy, busy, busy program. You had to do everything and anything of an accidental nature.”
Following his time in England, Butt returned to Newfoundland by way of a paper boat to Botwood and started to look for a hospital to work at. His parents had moved to Corner Brook, so he applied for a position in general surgery at Western Memorial.
He retired from practice in 1991, but “still eager and able” went on to serve another 24 years as a surgical assistant. He officially retired in October 2015.
He said the years spent as an assistant were rewarding, but after so many years felt it was time to consider doing nothing.
“I found a long session in the OR was just a little bit too much for me, so I stopped.”
When asked of the changes and advances he’s seen in surgical practice, Butt said everything was a big advance.
“It was not any great big leaps, but it was a general, steady improvement in how we sort things out surgically, surgical technique that you don’t always get just from books, but seeing and doing, and helping and being helped.”
Dr. Gerald Warren
Warren shares Butt’s pleasure on being recognized by the association.
“It’s sort of a little acknowledgement,” he said. “Even though you didn’t think you did anything except your job when you went through, if anybody thought you did more than that, well I’m thankful to those people who thought that.”
Warren was born in Corner Brook and can’t say exactly what drew him to the medical field, just that by the time he finished high school he was leaning towards medicine or dentistry.
At time there was only a small medical college, Memorial College in St. John’s, and it’s there he started off in pre-med and pre-dental. He later got into Dalhousie University’s medical program and in 1961 graduated with his medical degree.
By then he was married to his wife Nancy and he laughs when he says that he decided to go into family practice as opposed to a specialty because he was “sick of writing exams.”
He returned to Newfoundland after graduation and spent about a year working at the Channel Cottage Hospital in Port aux Basques.
In 1962 he moved back home. To him it was the right thing to do. “Because it was all I knew,” he said.
Traditionally, the people in my day and before that who went away to study medicine they didn’t come back,” he said.
But for him Corner Brook was a nice place, a safe place to raise a family.
For the next 33 years he practiced family medicine in the city. He left his practice in 1995 and spent another four years filling in for other doctors before going into full retirement.
The time he spent in practice was a fantastic time, he said.
“In the sense that what we did back in ’62 and what we did in the ’90s, there was so much improvement mostly in the diagnosis things. In the MRIs, the Cat Scans and all the other brain scans.”
In the earlier days, Warren said they had to practice without any of the help of that. “And things got so much better, easier for us I suppose in a sense.”
However, that also resulted in a change in the amount of time spent with patients.
“In the early days you had to spend more time with people, and talk to people, and examine people more and use what you had to come to an answer or diagnosis.”
As result doctors got to know people well, he said.
“In a sense I think there was something lost with relying so much on the new fangled investigation things.”
It is the interaction with his patients that he misses the most.
“Dealing with people everyday. I loved that part of it.”
Dr. Robert Butt and Dr. Gerald Warren have each dedicated many, many years of service as part of the medical community in Corner Brook.
Butt, a surgeon of 55 years said he was both surprised and pleased to be honoured.
“It indicates somebody holds me in high regard,” he said.
Butt was born in St. John’s in 1930, which he said with a laugh “sort of gives me townie status.” He grew up in Badger and completed his last year of high school in Grand Falls in order to be able to take courses in French, physics and chemistry.
From there he did his pre-med at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., followed by a medical degree at McGill University in Montreal in 1954. He then interned in St. John, N.B., worked at the Montreal Royal Victoria Hospital, where he met his wife Connie, went to the University of British Columbia for a year of teaching and research and then in 1958, as was “common practice in the game,” travelled overseas to study trauma at the
Birmingham Accident Hospital in Birmingham, England.
“That was busy, busy, busy program. You had to do everything and anything of an accidental nature.”
Following his time in England, Butt returned to Newfoundland by way of a paper boat to Botwood and started to look for a hospital to work at. His parents had moved to Corner Brook, so he applied for a position in general surgery at Western Memorial.
He retired from practice in 1991, but “still eager and able” went on to serve another 24 years as a surgical assistant. He officially retired in October 2015.
He said the years spent as an assistant were rewarding, but after so many years felt it was time to consider doing nothing.
“I found a long session in the OR was just a little bit too much for me, so I stopped.”
When asked of the changes and advances he’s seen in surgical practice, Butt said everything was a big advance.
“It was not any great big leaps, but it was a general, steady improvement in how we sort things out surgically, surgical technique that you don’t always get just from books, but seeing and doing, and helping and being helped.”
Dr. Gerald Warren
Warren shares Butt’s pleasure on being recognized by the association.
“It’s sort of a little acknowledgement,” he said. “Even though you didn’t think you did anything except your job when you went through, if anybody thought you did more than that, well I’m thankful to those people who thought that.”
Warren was born in Corner Brook and can’t say exactly what drew him to the medical field, just that by the time he finished high school he was leaning towards medicine or dentistry.
At time there was only a small medical college, Memorial College in St. John’s, and it’s there he started off in pre-med and pre-dental. He later got into Dalhousie University’s medical program and in 1961 graduated with his medical degree.
By then he was married to his wife Nancy and he laughs when he says that he decided to go into family practice as opposed to a specialty because he was “sick of writing exams.”
He returned to Newfoundland after graduation and spent about a year working at the Channel Cottage Hospital in Port aux Basques.
In 1962 he moved back home. To him it was the right thing to do. “Because it was all I knew,” he said.
Traditionally, the people in my day and before that who went away to study medicine they didn’t come back,” he said.
But for him Corner Brook was a nice place, a safe place to raise a family.
For the next 33 years he practiced family medicine in the city. He left his practice in 1995 and spent another four years filling in for other doctors before going into full retirement.
The time he spent in practice was a fantastic time, he said.
“In the sense that what we did back in ’62 and what we did in the ’90s, there was so much improvement mostly in the diagnosis things. In the MRIs, the Cat Scans and all the other brain scans.”
In the earlier days, Warren said they had to practice without any of the help of that. “And things got so much better, easier for us I suppose in a sense.”
However, that also resulted in a change in the amount of time spent with patients.
“In the early days you had to spend more time with people, and talk to people, and examine people more and use what you had to come to an answer or diagnosis.”
As result doctors got to know people well, he said.
“In a sense I think there was something lost with relying so much on the new fangled investigation things.”
It is the interaction with his patients that he misses the most.
“Dealing with people everyday. I loved that part of it.”
