Age: 39
Job title: Assistant Clinical Professor in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics, University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.
Why she’s a 2019 Top 40 Under 40: She goes above and beyond to care for and support her patients and their families.
For 10 years, Dr. Rehana Chatur has treated children who have complex medical needs, including terminal or chronic illnesses. But she and her medical partner, Dr. Lyle McGonigle, offer more than that through their practice at Garneau Pediatric Associates.
They are also the only two pediatricians in Edmonton who still actively choose to admit their patients to the Stollery Children’s Hospital. This means that they provide care both in hospital and through their clinic, and are on call at all times in the event that one of their hospitalized patients needs care.
“We’ve chosen to do that because we feel that continuity of care for these patients and their families is really important,” Chatur says. The difference can be seen in their waiting room.
“When a patient dies, we put their picture up in our office, just as a way of letting the families know that their children are important, their memories will not be lost, and that we honour them everyday by looking at them,” Chatur says. Outside of the clinic and hospital, Chatur is a medical director for the Little Heart Heroes Fund, which operates a medically supervised camp for children born with heart disease. It gives them a chance to spend time with other kids who are like them, and lets their parents feel confident that they’ll be safe at camp.
“Every year we’ve had more kids join and there’s been positive feedback from the parents, so it makes it worthwhile,” she says.
This article appears in the November 2019 issue of Avenue Edmonton
