Recognizing 2025 Rhapsody Physician Award nominee: Dr. Ron Spice
Community: Okotoks
Few people answer their phone when they are on a vacation from work thousands of kilometres away.
Okotoks’ Dr. Ron Spice may be one of the rare ones.
Dr. Spice not only answered his phone, but he advised and reassured Dr. Ana-Maria Oelschig, medical director of the Foothills Country Hospice – Okotoks, when she frantically reached out to her colleague for advice on a patient in crisis.
“I asked him if he would be in for rounds the next day and he told me he was in Spain and not on call,” recalls Dr. Oelschig.
“We rarely looked at call lists and he rarely reminded us,” she says. “I will have him on speed dial until he says stop.”
Dr. Oelschig is just one of many people who appreciate Dr. Spice’s dedication to his work as a rural hospice palliative consultant. She demonstrated her support by writing a nomination letter for the 2025 RhPAP Rhapsody Physician Award.
Dr. Spice retires this year after practising for four decades. Working primarily in the Rural Calgary Zone/Okotoks, he led the development of the Rural Palliative Care Consultation Team (RPCCT) in 2005.
“The rural palliative care community in the Calgary Zone would not have the great supports, resources, and care that it has today without the leadership, vision, and advocacy that Dr. Spice has displayed over the past 38 years,” writes Nicole Porquet-Seitz, rural palliative care consult service, in her nomination of Dr. Spice.
Colleague Linda Read Paul has worked closely with Dr. Spice for the past 20 years during the time when the Calgary Health Region was expanded well beyond the city limits to include 200,000 rural residents.
“From the outset, Ron was dedicated to building a rural palliative care program that addresses the challenges of providing rural palliative care, maintains the identity and independence of rural communities, builds on the strengths and experiences of people in rural areas and respects rural relationships, norms, values, and traditions,” she says.
“Dr. Spice’s sensitivity to, and respect for rural ways of being, have been key to the success of this program.”
Throughout his career, Dr. Spice also worked as a family physician in High Level and Claresholm and served as the academic rural director for the Cumming School of Medicine with the University of Calgary, Department of Family Medicine, among other roles.
“He has been widely regarded as an insightful leader with a calm, pragmatic, fair approach to complex situations,” notes Paul.