Respected oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Louis Bourget has spent virtually all of his 30-plus year career serving patients in Canada’s Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. A well-educated man, he holds many advanced credentials, including a B.Sc., two master’s degrees, a Ph.D., and several fellowships. He has also completed more than 1200 continuing education courses, including some at the Mayo Clinic.
Each year, Dr. Bourget packs up his medical instruments and supplies and takes his family to the tropics—either South America or Africa—in order to dispense much-needed surgeries to people with severe facial and dental conditions who otherwise do not have access to such services. He also spends some of his spare time throughout the rest of the year teaching first aid to members of the Canadian Ski Patrol.
Dr. Louis Bourget generously agreed to sit down with Exeleon Magazine for a brief discussion about his medical career and his humanitarian work.
Q: What made you choose oral and maxillofacial surgery as your area of medical expertise?
Dr. Louis Bourget: I think—and have always thought—that it’s an under-appreciated branch of medicine. When most people think about surgery, they tend to think of the abdominal organs, the limbs, or the brain, but the face and jaw can develop problems that need critical medical intervention, too. There are plenty of examples: people who have cleft lips or palates, people who have suffered facial trauma, and people who require treatment for oral infections. I could go on, but basically, to answer the question, when I chose my area of medical expertise, those are the people I wanted to spend my career helping.
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Q: Speaking of helping, could you tell us a little about your annual humanitarian missions to the developing world?
Dr. Louis Bourget: Sure. For a week or two out of every year, myself, my family, my sister who is a nun and a physician, and a group of surgeons from multiple disciplines venture to a region of the world we think could benefit from our help. Generally, it’s Brazil or one of the countries in Africa, such as Benin. Once there, We make ourselves available to anyone who requires facial surgery, jaw surgery, or any of the other surgeries that can be provided by the contingent of specialists we have among our party. The places we pick to visit are ones that don’t normally have access to doctors like us, so we’re usually kept pretty busy for the duration of these trips.
Q: And your family accompanies you on these voyages?
Dr. Louis Bourget: My family is as eager to help people as I am, if not more. My little sister, a nun since the age of 17, is now 58 and is permanently stationed in Africa. She is also a physician, so she does a lot to help to prepare the areas we plan to visit and she makes sure that patient follow-ups are done properly. When we take these trips, the rest of my family assists me with my work whenever I need it. When I don’t need help, they find other ways to be of service to the people we visit. This can take many forms; everything from repairing dwellings to fixing equipment to digging irrigation ditches. I’m really quite proud of them.
Q: That’s pretty remarkable in this day and age. How did the first of these trips come about? Where did the idea originate?
Dr. Louis Bourget: My sister, the nun, has been an inspiration to me and many others over the course of her long career. During her 25 years in Brazil, she established 100 hospitals, as well as a medical school. It was at her request I was first asked to go to Brazil and help out wherever I could. At her behest, I also established a foundation–Dr. Bourget Prof Inc.–to facilitate donations and make sure that they reached the right people. One hundred percent of the donations go directly to where they are most needed. Dr. Bourget Prof Inc. pays for all the overhead of the missions, which frees up the donated money to help the less fortunate, instead of using them for management fees, legal fees etc. In a more indirect and intangible sense, this whole enterprise sprang from a place of empathy and love for our fellow human beings.
Q: Do you have any words of wisdom to the aspiring oral and maxillofacial surgeons in our readership?
Dr. Louis Bourget: Following this particular path takes a great deal of time and commitment. I was in school for a very long time in order to earn the credentials I needed to open my own practices. It took a lot of hard work. Sometimes, when we immerse ourselves in a long-term endeavour, such as becoming a surgeon, we start working and we work so much that we can begin to forget where we come from. We get lost in the day-to-day activities. So, I would advise anyone considering oral and maxillofacial surgery as a vocation to make sure they always remember their initial inspiration for doing so–keep their internal fire burning, for lack of a better term. Once accredited and practicing medicine, you must use your talents to help others.
You must think of your fellow citizen’s welfare first and foremost, instead of viewing people with medical afflictions as simply a means to make money. Becoming a surgeon means working long hours, and it means helping patients improve their quality of life. Donate your time, volunteer your medical abilities to the less fortunate, and you will experience a change in your life for the better, the likes of which it is hard to describe!
