Dr. Ken Walker was a longtime medical columnist for The Globe and Mail, under the pen name W. Gifford Jones MD.David McIlvride/Supplied
Diana MacKay remembers accompanying her dad, Dr. Ken Walker, on his rounds at Niagara General Hospital when she was six, her little legs having to run to keep up with him as he dipped in and out of patient rooms.
She waited outside or with the nurses at their station while he did his work. It was in these moments that his colleagues would tell her how much they had learned from her father, how he was making the world a better place.
“It was so remarkable, because I saw how much esteem his colleagues had for him,” Ms. MacKay said. “I was just walking around with God, as far as I was concerned. He was the guy that was making everybody better.”
Kenneth Francis Walker, a renowned doctor and medical columnist widely known by his pen name W. Gifford-Jones, MD, died on July 1 at the age of 101. He is remembered for his fierce advocacy for women’s rights, the legalization of heroin for end-of-life cancer care, medical assistance in dying and what he considered “common-sense health.”
Dr. Walker was also the author of 10 books, the first being Hysterectomy: A Book for the Patient, which was published in 1971 to dispel myths about the procedure. In another book, 90+ How I Got There!, he focused on what he considers the unsung health benefits of high-dose Vitamin C and Lysine, which he credits to helping him recover after a heart attack at 74.
His loved ones describe him as a man who never shied away from controversial issues, even in the face of death threats when he was one of the only doctors performing legal abortions in Canada. Ms. MacKay said he also had a great sense of humour and was a devoted father.
“He didn’t like people who sat on the fence. He said, ‘you have to take a stand,’” said Ms. MacKay, who goes by the pseudonym Diana Gifford-Jones and will be continuing her dad’s column. When asked about her father’s legacy, she said: “I think he’d say that he gave a damn.”
Dr. Walker performed thousands of surgeries over the course of his career, operating into his 70s, and saw his last patient at 87 years old. As Dr. Gifford-Jones, he penned articles every week for 50 years until he died of natural causes at his home in Toronto, surrounded by family.
His column, The Doctor Game, launched in The Globe and Mail in October, 1975. It ran in the paper for 14 years and was widely syndicated. At its peak, the column was published in hundreds of papers in Canada, the United States and Europe. For the last five years, he co-wrote it with Ms. MacKay.
In a farewell column published days after his death, Dr. Walker said he regretted the anxiety it caused his family by taking on contentious issues.
“But I’d have been an awful hypocrite, and I can’t stand hypocrisy,” he said. “So, apart from some difficult bumps along the way, being a surgeon and medical journalist has been a wonderful dual ride.”
Kenneth Francis Walker was born on Feb. 28, 1924 in Croydon, an outer borough of London, England, as the only child of parents Walter and Annie Walker.
When he was four, the Walker family immigrated to Montreal. They packed up and left for Niagara Falls, Ont., a year later, after his father was appointed chief engineer at the Herbert Morris Crane Company.
In his 2000 memoir, titled You’re Going to Do What?, Dr. Walker said he was “never a brilliant student,” more interested in sports. But with the help of some memorable teachers, he passed his classes at Maple Street School and then Niagara Falls Collegiate.
At age 15, he made the decision to become a doctor.
“Why medicine? That’s a hard question to answer,” Dr. Walker wrote. He said he spent hours on the steps of his home watching doctors go in and out of the hospital across the street and had an “overwhelming desire to find out how the body worked” and how to care for people.
Then came a roadblock: He was rejected from the University of Toronto Medical School, a moment in his life he said he was later thankful for. He took a three-year pre-med course instead, “cursing all the while.”
Dr. Walker then applied to Harvard Medical School, and to his surprise, was accepted. He graduated in the class of 1950.
He then continued his surgical training at Strong Memorial Hospital in New York, the University of Rochester and Montreal General Hospital, later returning to Harvard to study gynecological surgery.
He also spent time as a ship’s surgeon, where on his first Atlantic crossing he had to relieve the captain of his command due to illness, and as a hotel doctor at the Manoir Richelieu Hotel in Murray Bay, Que.
It was during his last year of postgraduate training at Harvard when he met Susan Turner, who would become his wife of nearly 70 years. In his final column, Dr. Walker said she was also his editor and frequently kept him out of trouble for his words. “She was right 99 per cent of the time,” he wrote.
The pair got married in February, 1956, in Toronto. The following year, they welcomed their first child, Robert Walker. They had three more children: John Walker, Brett Walker and Ms. MacKay.
The same year they got married, Dr. Walker began his practice in Niagara Falls as gynecological surgeon, a practice he maintained for 25 years before he was appointed to staff at Toronto Western and Toronto General hospitals, according to his obituary.
“Those Niagara Falls days were wonderful times for our family,” Ms. MacKay said. “My father was always reminding his readers to make good choices about diet and lifestyle. But if he had one weakness, it was for the French fries served at the Niagara Falls arena. Hot out of the fryer and loaded with salt and vinegar. None of us could resist.”
Nicholas Leyland, in 1987, was in his last year of training at Toronto General Hospital when he met Dr. Walker. “I was kind of star-struck,” he remembers, having been an avid reader of the columns. “He was really kind of a renaissance medical guy.”
Dr. Leyland, said his long-time friend and mentor Dr. Walker taught him and many others to remain curious and to keep an open mind, not accepting anything at face value, even from authority figures.
“He has inspired many people in medicine to question the dogma of the day.”
Dr. Walker’s final advice for readers was not to fall victim to what he called “pillitis,” taking medication for every ache and pain. He urged people to take prescription drugs for the shortest time possible and to try natural remedies.
“Remember, ‘If you keep going to hell you will eventually get there,’” Dr. Walker wrote. “Living with a faulty lifestyle, fools attempt at the end of life what smart people do at the start.”
Dr. Walker leaves his wife, Susan, his four children and 12 grandchildren.
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