Guelph-based oncologist Basrur calls it a career

Guelph-based oncologist Basrur calls it a career

Looking back now, Dr. Vasanth Basrur could probably blame it all on the leeches.

Long before he stepped foot in medical school, treated his first cancer patient or became a trailblazer in radiation oncology, the roots of Dr. Basrur's career began in earnest as a boy of eight or nine growing up in Bangalore, India.

A neighbour had a rare condition in which she produced too many red blood cells. Young Basrur was shown by a local doctor how to treat the woman using leaches. He was hooked.

"At the time, the best way to treat someone like that was to use leeches on the skin. They would suck the blood painlessly. I would sit there and remove the leeches and put them in a bucket," he said. "Blood didn't really scare me."

On Friday, Dr. Basrur retired from Grand River Hospital after practicing medicine more than half a century. Now 83, the Guelph-based oncologist took time to reflect on his long and remarkable career.

He's treated thousands of patients while pioneering new ways to fight cancer using radiation that saved countless people from painful surgeries. Many of his treatment approaches have become the standard for cancer care today.

Dr. Basrur — whose career spanned cancer centres in Toronto, Hamilton, London and Kitchener — has been around long enough that some children he treated for leukemia returned to him decades later as adults with breast cancer.

The physician, who joined the cancer centre at Grand River Hospital 10 years ago, earned his PhD in 1957 and medical degree in 1961 from the University of Toronto.

His breakthrough thesis? Testing the effects of radiation treatment on pigs, which he kept in a laboratory basement across the street from the Princess Margaret hospital.

Over the decades, Dr. Basrur witnessed incredible advances in his field. In the early years, planning a patient's treatment was a cumbersome process that took days, fine-tuning photos from X-ray machines. Today, it's something computers and software programs do in a few minutes.

Radiation equipment has also become far more powerful, accurate and effective than it used to be, he said. At his busiest, he was treating up to 900 patients a year during the 30 years he spent with Hamilton Health Sciences.

But the best colleagues he ever had were at Grand River, where the cancer centre is a close-knit group of specialists and staff who develop a special bond, he said.

"This isn't a typical workplace. It's almost like a family," said Dr. Basrur, who was one of the first radiation oncologists to work at Grand River's new cancer centre. "They were unparalleled."

Cancer touched his own life very deeply, too. His eldest daughter, Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario's chief medical officer who helped guide Toronto through the SARS outbreak, succumbed to a rare form of vascular cancer in 2008.

She spent her final weeks at the Kitchener cancer centre, being treated by her father's colleagues. He says he'll never forget the kindness and professionalism she was shown.

"I'm full of gratitude to the staff at Grand River. My daughter spent the last days of her life there, and the staff was unbelievable. They went out of their way," he said.

His wife, Dr. Parvathi Basrur, was a renowned professor of veterinary genetics at the University of Guelph who trained thousands of young vets over her 60-year career. She passed away following heart surgery in 2012.

The retired doctor says he plans to travel south for a while and play more golf. But as for his desire to help others, Dr. Basrur says he'll never really lose that. That why he plans to volunteer, too.

"I will miss it," he said. "I had a great passion for helping patients in times of great difficulty. It sort of grows on you."