Recognizing 2025 Rhapsody Physician Award nominee: Dr. Roderick Oishi
Community: Edson
Dr. Roderick Oishi is considered a local legend around Edson.
Whether he is performing surgery, recruiting new health professionals, or even modelling in a fashion show for an upcoming healthcare fundraiser, Dr. Oishi has deep ties to his community.
“Dr. Oishi is a pillar in our healthcare community,” writes Brianna Canning, who nominated the physician for a 2025 RhPAP Rhapsody Physician Award.
“He has chosen to stay in Edson for the last 27 years, building his medical practice, surgical skills, and family.
“He chose to stay through hard times, low physician numbers, and recent struggles the healthcare system is facing.”
Dr. Jo Ann Robinson says her colleague has been “an invaluable mentor, consultant, and peer” over the past 15 years.
“As a general practitioner surgeon with obstetrical surgical skills, he spent many years being our only surgeon in town on call for the vast majority of the time,” she says.
“I recall lifesaving interventions that he has provided locally that include an emergent salpingectomy for an unstable ruptured ectopic pregnancy, a twin delivery that presented in labour too late for transfer and [performed] two surgical airways on unstable trauma patients in the emergency room. Dr. Oishi really does it all for us here in Edson.”
Beyond surgery, the physician’s scope of practice spans emergency, acute care, long-term care, as well as clinical care.
“Despite his broad depth of experience and skill, he conducts himself with empathy, humility, and professionalism at all times.”
Dr. Oishi’s influence even led to the recent hiring of a graduate nurse from Calgary.
“The nurse told me in the interview that he applied because one of Dr. Oishi’s residents had told him Edson is a wonderful community to live and work,” says registered nurse, Alexa Kuzmic, site manager at Edson Healthcare Centre.
Dr. Oishi has a passion for learning and continuing education and generously shares his knowledge and time with colleagues, medical residents and students, and high school students. He recently participated in an upcoming RhPAP Let’s Go Rural! High School event where local students learned more about careers in healthcare.
“He is an amazing educator and is constantly teaching,” says Allison Roth, care manager at Continuing Care in Edson.
“He is an encyclopedia of medical knowledge.”