“Life lessons from my time in pandemic leadership.” That’s how Dr. Lawrence Loh, recent graduate of Humber College’s eight-month Creative Writing Graduate program, describes the “hybrid memoir” he’s fashioned as part of his return to school at age 43.
If and when his work gets published, it could well be the subtitle. Two years at the centre of the COVID maelstrom, as Peel Region’s Medical Officer of Health, and another year heading the 43,000-member College of Family Physicians of Canada in the midst of a national primary care health care crisis took their toll on the man whose steadfast leadership made him either a hero (recipient of the key to the city from former Mayor Bonnie Crombie) or a villain, to a faction of citizens still waging retro-rhetorical war against vaccines and government mandates. “After three years of crisis management, I basically went back to school to learn how to tell stories,” said Loh with the calm, “just the facts m’am” directness that .
And boy does he have stories to tell: about decisions to shut down an Amazon warehouse where infection was spreading, shutting schools in favour of online instruction amid widespread criticism, and dealing with the anti-Asian conspiracy theories that were inevitably directed the way of the son of Malaysian parents of Chinese descent, who grew up in London, Ont. There were “a lot of challenges” to deal with in jumping from the frying pan of the pandemic into the fire of the health care crisis (or is it vice-versa?), most of them focused on the negative. “Basically, I consider myself a fairly positive and optimistic person and I’d like to move more towards that,” Loh said in an interview from Humber, where he’s also just finished a summer workshop on creative writing.
The arts have always been an integral part of Loh’s life, from his Grade 2 musings on Winnie-the-Pooh to a role in the school play as Benedict in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” to editor-in-chief of the Asian-Canadian magazine at Western University, to on-stage hijinks in an improv satirical group in the medical faculty at Western. He’s peer-reviewed more than 100 academic publications, written short stories “as a creative outlet” for much of his life, and produced two 80,000-word fiction manuscripts. “This is getting back to something I’ve always enjoyed,” said the former Brampton family physician, who has extolled the benefits of healthy communities and active lifestyles during numerous local forums on everything from diabetes to reimagining the mall.
He’s lived the philosophy, running every morning and taking transit to his job in Peel from his Toronto home. Medicine to manuscripts isn’t as strange a pivot as it may seem. “I’ve always had a tremendous respect for writers, people who can convey their feelings well.
I want to learn to do this well.” The draft memoir, tentatively titled “What It Takes,” serves multiple purposes. It’s not about “relitigating COVID.
” It’s about the personal and professional experience gained in a “very strange time.” “Each chapter deals with a real incident that happened and how it was dealt with, written in the form of letters to my daughters,” says Loh, who has girls ages six and nine. The book reflects on everything from personal identity to finding joy in the “soundtrack of our life.
” A Karaoke devotee, Loh shares a love of Taylor Swift music with his daughters. Although he famously performs Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, he said that even on the worst of his 18-19-hour days confronting COVID, “I never felt like running. “I was supported by one of the greatest public health teams and by council and community leaders.
We obviously didn’t always agree but, when push came to shove, and it came down to doing the right thing for residents, we ended up coming together. “When you’re going through hell, you have to keep going to see the other side. We did see it through until the mandates were lifted.
I would not let the haters have the satisfaction of seeing me leave before it was done.” Connect with John at ..
