Who's been naughty and who's been nice?

Dr Guyda dons the red suit for the Montreal Children's 100th Christmas

By Wendy Banks

As he makes the rounds in his red suit, handing out age-appropriate gifts to kids on the ward, he never knows in advance whether he's going to be Santa Claus or Père Noël, he explains.

Not that speaking French is a problem for him. The Winnipeg native of Ukrainian descent had to learn how in a hurry 35 years ago, after a permanent visa for a residency at Johns Hopkins University led to a Vietnam draft notice. Ironically, he received his place at Johns Hopkins because the resident who had previously occupied it was drafted. "A few months into my program, Uncle Sam said he wanted me for Vietnam as well," he recalls. "I had a difficult three or four months before that was resolved. Eventually, I was allowed to complete my fellowship, but only on the proviso that I return to Canada at the end of it and never come back to the US."

FROM THE DRAFT TO FIREBOMBS
His mentor, Dr Robert Blizzard, head of the endocrinology unit at Johns Hopkins, pulled some strings for him, and found an endocrinologist,

Dr Henry Friesen, at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal who was in need of a resident. "He made a phone call, and lo and behold, on very short notice, a fellowship was arranged when I needed it."

At first, it seemed like he'd abandoned the frying pan for the fire — of the FLQ crisis in Quebec. "We came to Montreal extremely naively, without knowing anything about it, and the first year we were here, there were firebombs in the mailboxes." He laughs incredulously. "After living through the Watts Riot era at Hopkins, we were used to that sort of thing, but we never expected to see it in Montreal."

Nonetheless, Dr Guyda and his young family started to settle in. Five years later, the Nixon government issued him a pardon, but the damage was already done. "We all love Montreal so much, we couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I came for a two-year fellowship in 1969, and I'm still here."

He likes Montreal's multiculturalism, and particularly likes his work environment at McGill, where he's chair of the department of pediatrics. "It's very nurturing," he explains. "I enjoy having the chance to mentor other people who are just starting out in their careers."

There are things he and his wife miss from Winnipeg, though — particularly those big traditional Eastern European family Christmases. During his high school years at Winnipeg's famous St John's Technical School, and later on at the University of Manitoba's faculty of medicine, he recalls Christmas dinners at his Polish grandparents' farmhouse north of Winnipeg attended by 20 or 30 people. "I feel sorry for the kids having missed out on that."

IN THE HOLY LAND
There have been compensations. Because of his work — clinical, academic and also as president of the Diabetic Children's Foundation of Quebec — Dr Guyda has had many opportunities to travel. One of his fondest memories is of a trip to Jerusalem where he worked for two months as a visiting professor at Hadassah University. He was able to invite his family to stay with him for nearly a month. "We were there at a time when all the cultures were having their holidays — Easter, Ramadan and Passover, all of them rolled together in one week. We went from synagogue to mosque to church — we visited them until we were silly, but it was wonderful. And for the kids to experience that was fantastic."

Although he does a fair bit of solo travel in Europe, South America and the Middle East, he's less enthusiastic about it. "These other trips are fun, but it can be a little lonely if you don't have your family with you," he admits. But he doesn't always have a choice. "My wife is as busy as I am, if not busier, on a 24/7 basis, so she picks and chooses the trips she finds interesting."

Busy is an understatement. For several years, Patricia Guyda, a former psychiatric nurse, has been the president of an advocacy group called Canadians for Health Research. She also runs a popular national high school health research essay-writing contest, and manages an information service for universities regarding the proper use of animals in research — as a result of which she's had to learn to detect letter bombs from animal activists. "Given her role in all these activities, she's received the Order of Canada; so I've had a bit of a help," Dr Guyda laughs. "We share research, we proofread each other's stuff. It's a good duo."

UKRAINIAN HOSPITALITY
The two met while he was doing his pediatric residency in Winnipeg and she was head nurse. She shares his Ukrainian background, and with it, his sense of traditional Ukrainian hospitality. And that's not just in theory. Back in the Johns Hopkins days, the couple would invite sick children home from the hospital with them for Christmas dinner. "There were kids in our unit who had significant medical histories and were left stranded in the hospital because they couldn't be discharged. They had no family around — a lot of them came from out of state," Dr Guyda recalls. So they would bring them home for an evening of festivities and then drive them back to the hospital. "It just seemed like the right thing to do. My wife and I have always opened our house to people. It's a part of our heritage."

So playing Santa isn't alien to his nature? Not at all. For one thing, the atmosphere's particularly festive at the Montreal Children's which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. This is his third time doing the ho ho ho thing — at the Children's, the willing take it in turns to don the red suit. And that's not where his duties end. "In fact, I'm also working as Santa's helper at next week's Diabetic Children's Foundation of Quebec dinner," he reveals. "But I won't be the main attraction at that one. There, I'm more of a flunky."