Memoir covers life as nurse, doctor, patient and advocate

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Pat Zehr says her career has been in thirds: first as a nurse, second as a physician, and now as an author.
She wrote and published a memoir last year, and is currently working on her first work of fiction. When asked why the jump to fiction, she quoted Abraham Verghese: “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives.”
She started writing her memoir The Beatles, Babies and Broken Bodies – My Memoir Navigating Canada’s Healthcare System in 2008, but major life events and work delayed her from completing and publishing it until August of 2022. In the book, Zehr recounts the good, the bad, and the ugly of healthcare through the lenses of nurse, physician, patient advocate, and ultimately as a patient.
Each chapter has a song title of the Beatles, with whose music she’s had a deep connection with throughout her life. She enjoyed curating songs to fit with the chapter contents. “I wanted to make it fun,” said Zehr. “I’m a huge Beatles fan, and will be forever, so I really enjoyed choosing the right songs for each chapter.”
Having retired from the healthcare profession in 2021, Zehr considers herself a health-and-wellness crusader and an advocate. She hopes her experiences can assist others navigate the healthcare system and help to fix it.
Zehr got her start as a candy striper at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener. After graduating as a registered nurse, she spent seven years working at Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife and at outposts in the far north. While there, she assisted in saving the life of a baby, and felt compelled to complete a degree in medicine and an OB/GYN residency. After that, Zehr moved to Sault Ste. Marie in 1991 and set up her practice. Thirty years later, Zehr retired from practicing medicine.
As a student nurse, she had a short story published in a magazine, and she co-wrote an article published in a midwifery journal when creating the midwifery first-assist program at SAH.
When she’s not writing, Zehr’s other hobbies include being a grandmother to her three-year-old granddaughter, travelling, cross-country skiing, kayaking, walking, spending time with her husband, and swimming. While swimming at the YMCA, Zehr finds her mind working on the next strokes of her book. Then she heads home and translates her thoughts to the laptop.
“I like to write every day to stay in the flow,” said Zehr. “I love words, finding the right ones, and just sitting down and putting my thoughts together. I’m really enjoying writing my novel. I’m very excited about it and crave writing daily.”
She is halfway done her first draft, but has no specific timeline set for herself, other than to finish it faster than her memoir.
In The Beatles, Babies and Broken Bodies, Zehr chronicles very real career and life events (using pseudonyms). She also covers gender issues in the system and wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I hope people will understand the importance of taking care of health care providers and first responders who are burned out.” Zehr said. “The changes I’ve seen in healthcare since training as a nurse are not good. We really need to rebuild a lot of the healthcare system.”
Zehr is concerned that if we continue to ask healthcare workers to do more with less, communities will end up having to do without: “For communities to be healthy you need healthy nurses, doctors, and first responders, otherwise they will leave for better opportunities.”
After facing four surgeries as a patient herself, Zehr was disillusioned with the system, and believes that everyone has to be their own healthcare advocate: “You have to make the calls and seek out the care that you need … and it’s hard to do that, especially if you don’t have a family doctor.”
She hopes that people entering the field will see insight in her suggestions towards improving the healthcare system and achieving work-life balance.
Zehr has always believed in writing what she knows, hence the memoir. “My career and experiences in the healthcare system (as a nurse, physician, patient advocate, and patient) were quite the journey and I really felt that I needed to write it, so I did,” said Zehr. “Then I felt that it was important to publish it. There is a lot to unpack, and I really hope that it will help empower others and help them to be in charge of their life and their own care.”
Her work of fiction’s premise is the journey of a Canadian nurse who goes to work in Texas. Zehr herself didn’t work in Texas, as a nurse she went north to the Northwest Territories. “It was the very best thing that could have happened,” said Zehr. “I was challenged and given the opportunity to really grow and learn what I was capable of, well beyond the scope of what a nurse would typically do. It made me go back to school to become a physician. I doubt I would have had that experience elsewhere.”
Paul Zehr, her neuroscientist brother in Victoria, B.C. has written a few non-fiction books explaining the science of superheroes, including: Becoming Batman, Inventing Iron Man, Catching Captain America, and Project Superhero. Pat was inspired by her younger brother, given that he found time to write and publish while juggling being a father, professor, scientist, and martial artist. “He’s very accomplished, and he managed to write with his limited time, so I thought I could too. I started writing in post-op from a surgery and kept going.”
Zehr has enjoyed the collaborations for her work. The original concept of her cover art was created by local artist Amy Williams. “I love my cover.” Zehr said. “I sent Friesen the drawing and they digitized it.” She also strengthened a friendship she’d had since kindergarten as they reconnected over the editing and marketing of her books. Zehr said that she has sold over 500 books to date.
In Sault Ste. Marie, you can find her book in the library, at The Artesian, and in several local pharmacies, including Adel’s Pharmasave across from the hospital. She is also happy to autograph and deliver copies locally to people who contact her through her website www.drpatzehr.ca. Her memoir can be purchased online from Amazon or https://books.friesenpress.com.
She will also have books available for sale at the library’s Author Palooza event this year on Oct. 17.
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Nadine Robinson is a local freelance writer. You can reach her at the.ink.writer@gmail.com or on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @theinkran.

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