At 14 years old, Gill Eamer's hidden talents for administering medicine were put to a life or death test.
His father Wally lay bleeding in the back of the family car, the major artery in his leg severed after being shot by a gunman who had attempted to rob the Prince George family on the side of a road in Honduras.
With the hospital 40 minutes away and his mother driving the car, Gil and his sister took turns applying pressure to the wound while their eight-year-old brother held his dad's head in his lap,trying to keep him calm and awake.
"I've known since I was 14 I wanted to be a doctor," said Eamer, 28, who was living in Central America at that time with his family. "Myself and my family were able to save my father's life with first aid and that was an 'ah-ha' moment.
"We stopped to help some people on the road and one of them pulled a gun and tried to carjack us. My dad [Wally] was incredibly brave and confronted him and tried to talk him down and eventually got shot in the leg. His femoral artery was severed and his femoral vein was cut and my sister and I were able to slow the blood loss to the point we were able to get him to a clinic.
"That was the day I decided I wanted be a doctor because I saw the difference they made in my life and my dad's life."
Eamer, a Duchess Park secondary school graduate, was part of a class of 30 Northern Medical Program students who took part in convocation ceremonies Saturday at UNBC. After completing undergraduate degrees in genetics and commerce/finance at the University of Alberta, Eamer started medical school at UBC, where all NMP students begin a four-year program. Having divided his time the last 3 1/2 years between UNBC classrooms and clinical sessions at UHNBC and other hospitals, Eamer is heading back to Edmonton, where he will begin a five-year residency program to become a general surgeon.
"It's been a long time coming and I'm really excited," said Eamer. "Prince George was my first choice of any program of anywhere in North America or the world. I'm from Prince George, I like Prince George, and I knew the group of doctors here was very keen to teach. When you have people who enjoy teaching you learn a lot more because they care more and you want to reward their enthusiasm."
Once he's finished his residency, Eamer said he would like to set up his practice in Prince George, if there's a position available. Seven of the 30 NMP graduates are going to Edmonton for their residencies, six in specialty fields (five-year programs) and one in family medicine (a two-year residency).
"Edmonton understands that not everyone wants to or can be a big-city doctor. We need doctors in small towns and they seem to really embrace that," said Eamer. "They train a lot of people for coming back to places like Prince George.
"In Vancouver, the impression I got that if you're not really interested in research, you can still be a good surgeon but you won't be as important as [they] are. They do amazing work down there and are very skilled at everything but there's a bit of attitude down there. They think they live in the best place in the world and when somebody says they want to live somewhere else, a lot of them don't understand that."
Wally and his wife Charlene now live in Victoria, where he feels virtually no lingering effects from the Jan. 3, 1998 incident. "He's got a little bit of burning in the big toe -- that's it," said Gil.
