Ken Walker (physician)

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Kenneth Francis Walker (born 1924) is a medical writer, celebrity doctor,[1] and retired Canadian obstetrician and gynecologist.[2]

He writes a weekly medical column under the pseudonym W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., "The Doctor Game", which debuted in the Globe and Mail in 1975 and was syndicated to over 40 newspapers by the end of the 1970s.[1][3] It is currently syndicated to over 70 newspapers in Canada, the United States and Europe. He has also written nine books, has been a senior editor of Canadian Doctor magazine, and a regular contributor to Fifty Plus magazine.[4][2]

Walker was born in 1924 in Croydon, England. His family moved to Canada when he was 4, settling in Niagara Falls, Ontario.[3]

Walker earned his undergraduate degree from University of Toronto and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1950.[5]

He adopted the Gifford-Jones pseudonym when he wrote his first book in 1961, Hysterectomy: A Book for the Patient, due to the College of Physicians and Surgeons which ruled he could not publish a medical book under his own name as this would constitute advertising for patients and was not permitted under the college's rules. He went on to publish several more books under his pen name and used it when he launched his column in 1975.[3]

While practicing in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Walker was an advocate of women's right to choose abortion and was an abortion practitioner in the area after the procedure became legal in 1969, resulting in death threats from abortion opponents.[2]

In 1979, he began campaigning for the legalization of heroin as a painkiller for terminal cancer patients through his column, by creating the Gifford-Jones Foundation to raise money for the campaign and through newspaper advertisements and collecting 30,000 names on a petition and soliciting 20,000 letters from his readers in support of his efforts.[1][6]

Walker has also advocated the right to assisted suicide and euthanasia and is a member of the physicians advisory council of Dying with Dignity Canada.[7]

In 1986, Walker participated in a "fact finding" tour of South Africa sponsored by the apartheid government. Upon his return he wrote an op ed in the Globe and Mail titled "The good side of white South Africa" which opposed sanctions against or disinvestment from South Africa and also opposed the prospect of ending white minority rule in the country.[8]

In 2018, the Toronto Sun pulled a Gifford-Jones column from its website following an outcry over its urging readers to consider "both sides of the vaccine debate". Sun editor Adrienne Batra said it was removed from the newspaper's website after medical professionals pointed out inaccuracies in the column.[9]

Walker retired from his practice at the age of 87 and currently lives in Toronto's Harbourfront neighbourhood with his wife of more than 60 years.[2]

Bibliography[]

  • 90+ How I Got There! by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2015
  • What I Learned as a Medical Journalist: a collection of columns by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2013
  • You’re Going to do What?: The Memoir of Dr. W. Gifford-Jones by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2000, ECW Press
  • The Healthy Barmaid by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1995, ECW Press
  • Medical Survival by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1985, Methuen
  • What Every Woman Should Know About Hysterectomy by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1977, Funk & Wagnalls, New York
  • The Doctor Game by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1975, McClelland & Stewart
  • On Being A Woman – The Modern Woman’s Guide to Gynecology by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1969, Book of the Month Club selection (Canada and U.S.)
  • Hysterectomy? - A Book for the Patient by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1961, University of Toronto Press

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Richert, Lucas (October 2, 2017). "Heroin in the hospice: opioids and end-of-life discussions in the 1980s". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 189 (39): E1231–E1232. doi:10.1503/cmaj.170720. PMC 5628036. PMID 30969939. S2CID 80421909. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d "Keeping up with Dr. W. Gifford-Jones". Montreal Gazette. October 23, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "A columnist's radical medicine; Gifford-Jones's autobiography recounts battles over views on abortion, heroin use", by Valerie Hill, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 1 December 2000 (retrieved via Factiva)
  4. ^ Cross, Brian (October 13, 2015). "Dr. Gifford-Jones has 'never been a fence sitter". Windsor Star. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  5. ^ "Walker, Kenneth Francis". CPSO. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  6. ^ Richert, Lucas (July 26, 2017). "Cancer controversies and traditional medicines". Regina Leader-Post. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  7. ^ "Dr. Ken Walker (a.k.a. Dr. Gifford Jones)". Dying with Dignity Canada. Dying with Dignity Canada. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  8. ^ "Taking Sides" (PDF). Southern Africa Report (pg 1-2). 2 (4). Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa. February 1987. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  9. ^ Burns, Adam. "Toronto Sun newspaper pulls column skeptical of vaccines after backlash". National Post. Canadian Press. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
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