Dr. Brown with some of the surgical equipment he was instrumental in bringing to the SPH OR.
On behalf of everyone at Saanich Peninsula Hospital & Healthcare Foundation, we would like to thank Dr. Michael (Mick) Brown for nine years of dedicated service on the Foundation Board. As a well-known General Surgeon, Mick has provided sage advice over the years about the most urgently needed equipment and programs in the operating room and throughout the hospital. It is in part thanks to Mick’s input, that Saanich Peninsula Hospital remains a centre of excellence in care and is a place where other physicians and other allied healthcare staff want to work.
As a way of saying thank you, the Foundation has appointed Dr. Brown the 2022 Annual Campaign Chair. We are so grateful to him for lending his voice to the campaign and for talking about the ongoing needs at our community hospital.
“For me, the decision to support the Foundation—both as a board member for the last nine years, and now as this year’s Campaign Chair—has been an easy one, and an honour,” says Mick, who adds that he became a beneficiary of the Foundation’s hard work when he became a General Surgeon at SPH in 2001. “I saw a mammoth change in what I was able to do over the years because of what the Foundation provided to this hospital.”
Before Mick came to the peninsula, he spent many years developing his considerable skills as a surgeon and physician. After receiving his medical degree through the University of Saskatchewan, he entered the military—first as a physician for ten years, and later, a surgeon. He spent time in Yugoslavia during the war, operating out of what he describes as a “Mash-like hospital,” and also served on an American Mercy-class hospital ship during the Gulf War along with a team of other Canadian medical professionals. Following his military retirement, Mick became a General Surgeon at a small hospital in High River, Alberta, and also spent time as a Trauma Surgeon at the larger Foothills Hospital.
“In 2001, my wife and I heard about the opportunity at SPH,” says Mick. “We’d always wanted to come back to Victoria, because that’s where we started out in the 1960s.” Mick arrived just in time to see SPH through many major improvements, including the new Emergency Department in the early 2000s, and more recently, upgrades to Palliative Care and new Operating/Recovery Rooms.
“When I started as a General Surgeon, it was immediately obvious to me what a wonderful hospital this was; everybody had a vested interest in the work,” says Mick. “Thanks to you and this community, who so generously donate every year, we’ve been able to continuously expand care and recruit medical professionals who are passionately dedicated to providing exemplary care close to home.”
Mick, thank you for all your years of service to the Foundation. You will truly be missed around the Boardroom table.
