Brian Hennen: Doctor. Family man. Mentor. Advocate. Born June 14, 1937, in Hamilton; died Aug. 30, 2021, in Dartmouth, N.S., of an abdominal aortic aneurism, aged 84.
Courtesy of family
As a young boy, Brian contracted a childhood illness that kept him confined for an extended period. While he recuperated at home, he realized that he wanted to help people the way his doctors had helped him. To the occasional dismay of his children, Albert, Leslie and Nancy, who followed more circuitous routes to self-discovery, he never wavered from that path.
In his early days as a family doctor in Orillia, Ont., Brian was called to the train station on a cold weekend evening. He saw a ring of people surrounding a mound of coats piled on the ground, from which came much moaning. Brian approached, and soothingly said, “It’s okay. I’m the doctor. I’m here to help you. Can you tell me what hurts the most?” to which the woman under the coats replied, “My hand, my hand, you’re standing on my hand!” He never minded when his wife, Margi, told this story. His humility informed everything that he did.
Brian was always an empath. He got fired from his first job as a Dickie Dee salesman because he kept giving away ice cream to the kids who didn’t have the dime to pay for it. He spent summers in medical school working at the Ontario Hospital in Hamilton with women in the schizophrenia ward, doing crafts and taking them on walks around the hospital grounds. (Before he arrived, no one thought to take them out of the hospital for exercise.)
As a teaching doctor, he led his students to discovery not just in class or the exam room, but also in journal club and at barbecues in his backyard. He lived the compassion he taught by offering it equally to his colleagues, his students and his patients. He dedicated his retirement years to advocating for and supporting adults with developmental disabilities in Canada.
Brian plays the piano with his grandson Sean in 2005.Courtesy of family
He treasured the collegiality and humanity that he found in the Canadian College of Family Physicians, the doctors in his Circle of Willis book club and singing bass in his church choir.
He was serious and caring, but he was an imp, too. When it was game night at the cottage, he would never play cards to win but just to mess everyone else up. In a heated game of Balderdash, he would concoct the most ridiculous definition possible and use some version of it for every round, then sit back with a little spark in his eye, waiting for everyone at the table to crack up. While playing bridge, he never met a three no-trump contract he wouldn’t attempt.
The piano bench was his happy place. He worked through many a stressful day by singing the blues – St. James Infirmary Blues, Georgia or The Lady is a Tramp (which he always requested for Margi when they went to jazz concerts). He delighted in balancing babies in his lap as he played.
Besides his family, Brian was most proud of being named dean of medicine at the University of Manitoba, the first family physician to have this position anywhere in Canada, and to have a research chair at Queen’s University, his beloved alma mater, named after him. This combination of family and medicine and teaching was what he was all about: caring for others and gently guiding those around him to do the same.
Nancy Hennen is Brian’s daughter.
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