Dr James Taylor

From the Golden Star – Oct 31, 1984

Dr. Taylor Retires

Finishing 30 years of service to the community, Dr Jim Taylor looks like he just is ready to start.

Taylor, interviewed in his home by the Star, appeared relaxed and full of energy. The three decades of dedicated service to the people of the Golden area does not seem to have tired him at all.

He came to Golden in 1953 because of some good words about the town from a friend, Dr Gordon Lapp, who had recently arrived in Golden.

Taylor graduated from the University of Alberta Medical School in Edmonton in 1951. An internship in Edmonton was followed by one year of practice in Edmonton.

However, as Taylor was a small-town boy, he looked forward to a practice in Golden. Taylor was born and raised in a small town about 100 miles north of Edmonton.

“I like a small town”, said Taylor.

With his wife Betty they decided a small town like Golden was the ideal place to raise children.

One of their children, Tom, practices medicine in Revelstoke.

Despite the small-town attractiveness of Golden, there was some big time responsibility awaiting him.

According to Taylor, prior to the arrival of Lapp, there had been no doctor in Golden for 6 months. This was at a time when the medical facilities of Calgary were eight or nine hours away.

“There was just the two of us and we were busy from the start”, said Taylor.

“We took care of everything that came along. You were on your own. Just assumed it was your responsibility”.

That aspect of practice in Golden has changed greatly during the Taylor years. “Now” he said, “there is a close tie between doctors and Golden and the specialists in Calgary”.

Nearly every department head from Foothills Hospital has been in Golden speaking to the doctors here, said Taylor about the resources the Golden Doctors now have to draw on.

“Everything is highly specialized in mentalized”, said Taylor.

The techniques and drugs available have come a long way but the key is still the doctor’s ability to relate to people.

The changes in the community and the practice of medicine are quite obvious to tailor. When he came to Golden there were no sidewalks, no paved streets and paint on houses was a rare extra. The hospital was an old wooden building.

As time went on, changes were made. Sidewalks came in, the pavement went down and a modern new hospital was built in the 1960s.

However, the best part of the practice for Taylor did not change. Knowing his well was an aide to him. “Lots of them I delivered, and then have come to me when it was time for them to deliver”, said Taylor about his closeness to the people of the area.

That closeness has contributed to his feeling that practice in Golden was interesting and rewarding.

“I loved every day of it. Always been good people to work with”, he said, speaking of his colleagues and patients alike.

“There never has been a shortage of patients to work with. For years it meant being on call 24 hours a day seven days a week. That area of medicine is over”, he said.

In those times, everything that came along had to be dealt with. As a logging community, there was also many accidents.

In many cases it meant going to the books and doing the best you could. There was no way of getting them to another place.

“There was a lot of midnight reading”, said Taylor about the need for him to keep current in the many fields of medicine. Over the years there were many trials of his knowledge and skill. One that remains in his mind is a caesarean section. He performed the operation by himself.

It was a life and death death situation and Taylor had no choice but to handle it by himself. It was successful.

Today the doctors have choice and they would not be confronted by such a situation alone.

As such incidents moved further into history, Taylor saw the time coming for him to leave his practice.

Leaving medicine to the younger doctors has left him time for other things like skiing.