W. Gifford-Jones, M.D.

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Dr. Kenneth Francis Walker (born 1924) is a medical writer, celebrity doctor,[1] and retired Canadian obstetrician and gynecologist.

He writes a weekly medical column under the pseudonym W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., "The Doctor Game" column, which debuted in the Globe and Mail in 1975 and was syndicated to over 40 newspapers by the end of the 1970s.[1] It was carried in the Globe and Mail until 1989, before moving to the Toronto Sun.

By the mid-1990s, his column was carried by over 85 newspapers in Canada and 300 newspapers in the United States including the Chicago Sun-Times.[2] It is currently syndicated to over 70 newspapers in Canada, the United States and Europe. He has also written nine books, has been a senior editor of Canadian Doctor magazine, and a regular contributor to Fifty Plus magazine.[3][4]

He earned his undergraduate degree from University of Toronto and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1950.[5][6][7]

He adopted his pseudonym in order to publish his first book in 1961, as he was required to write under a pen name due to College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario rules in the 1960s that restricted how physicians could publicise their medical practice. The College considered writing popular medical advice books to be a form of advertising and thus would only permit Walker to publish if he used a pen name.[8]

In 1979, Gifford-Jones began campaigning for the legalization of heroin as a painkiller for terminal cancer patients through his column, by creating the Gifford-Jones Foundation to raise money for the campaign and through newspaper advertisements and collecting 30,000 names on a petition and soliciting 20,000 letters from his readers in support of his efforts.[1] When his campaign was successful and the practice was legalized in 1984, he donated the remaining money that had been raised for the campaign to establish the Gifford-Jones Professorship in Pain Control and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto Medical School.[9]

Gifford-Jones has also advocated the right to assisted suicide and euthanasia and is a member of the physicians advisory council of Dying with Dignity Canada[10] and is also a member of Dignitas.[11] He is also an opponent of providing safe injection sites for drug users and is an advocate of capital punishment for drug traffickers and murderers.[11][12][13]

Gifford-Jones is an advocate of the use of Vitamin C megadosage with lysine as a treatment or preventative for heart disease.[14] He has been criticised on ethical grounds for advocating that readers use vitamins instead of cholesterol-lowering drugs and statins without any scientific research to back up his claims and for allegedly being in a conflict of interest by selling his own line of vitamin supplements, which he promotes in full page advertorials purchased in various newspapers.[15]

In 1986, Walker participated in a "fact finding" tour of South Africa sponsored by the apartheid government. Upon his return he wrote an op ed in the Globe and Mail titled "The good side of white South Africa" which opposed sanctions against or disinvestment from South Africa and also opposing the prospect of ending white minority rule in the country.[16][17]

While practicing in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Walker was an advocate of women's right to choose abortion and was an abortion practitioner in the area after the procedure became legal in 1969, resulting in death threats from abortion opponents.[4][11]

By the 1980s he had relocated his medical practice to Toronto.[17] He retired from his practice at the age of 87 and currently lives in Toronto's Harbourfront neighbourhood with his wife of more than 60 years.[4][18]

Bibliography

  • 90+ How I Got There! by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2015
  • What I Learned as a Medical Journalist: a collection of columns by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2013
  • You’re Going to do What?: The Memoir of Dr. W. Gifford-Jones by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 2000, ECW Press
  • The Healthy Barmaid by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1995, ECW Press
  • Medical Survival by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1985, Methuen
  • What Every Woman Should Know About *Hysterectomy by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1977, Funk & Wagnalls, New York
  • The Doctor Game by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1975, McClelland & Stewart
  • On Being A Woman – The Modern Woman’s Guide to Gynecology by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1969, Book of the Month Club selection (Canada and U.S.)
  • Hysterectomy? - A Book for the Patient by W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., 1961, University of Toronto Press

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Richert, Lucas (October 2, 2017). "Heroin in the hospice: opioids and end-of-life discussions in the 1980s". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 189 (39): E1231. doi:10.1503/cmaj.170720. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  2. ↑ Walker, Kenneth (11 Apr 1996). "The Healthy Barmaid, the New Minister of Health". The Empire Club of Canada Addresses (Toronto, Canada),: 466–484.
  3. ↑ "Dr. Gifford-Jones has 'never been a fence sitter'". windsorstar.com. 13 October 2015.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Keeping up with Dr. W. Gifford-Jones". canada.com. Postmedia News. 24 October 2017.
  5. ↑ "Biography". docgiff.com. W. Gifford Jones. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  6. ↑ "Walker, Kenneth Francis". College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  7. ↑ Gifford-Jones, W. (June 23, 2018). "But Roosevelt knows how to be president!". Toronto Sun. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  8. ↑ Gifford-Jones, W. (2000). You're Going to Do What?: The Memoir of Dr. W. Gifford-Jones. ECW Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN 9781550224252. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Drug addicts get better pain control than cancer patients". Charlottetown Guardian. December 5, 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Dr. Ken Walker (a.k.a. Dr. Gifford Jones)". Dying with Dignity Canada. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 "Dr. Ken Walker, aka W. Gifford-Jones MD, admits opposition to his vitamin C advocacy might stem from his controversial stands on touch medical subjects". Sault Star. July 15, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  12. ↑ Gifford-Jones, W. (December 7, 2017). "Heroin for addicts, none for cancer patients". Toronto Sun. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  13. ↑ Gifford-Jones, W. (July 14, 2018). "Doug Ford is dead right, injection sites are dead wrong". Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  14. ↑ nurun.com. "Medical journalist speaking from the heart". Chatham Daily News.
  15. ↑ "The cardiac miracle cure? Vitamin C, lysine and Dr. W. Gifford-Jones". ethicalnag.org. 14 February 2014.
  16. ↑ "Taking Sides" (PDF). Southern African Report. February 1987. Retrieved July 15,2018.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "The good side of white South Africa" Walker, Kenneth. The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]02 Dec 1986: A7.
  18. ↑ https://thebulletin.ca/dr-gifford-jones-celebrates-60-years-marriage/
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