Doctors Nova Scotia welcomes new President and President-Elect

Dr. Gehad Gobran of Bedford, N.S., was installed as Doctors Nova Scotia’s President for 2024–25 during the association’s annual conference on Saturday, June 8, 2024.

During his term, Dr. Gehad Gobran will continue to focus on stabilizing primary care for Nova Scotians.

“I think we lose sight of how good Nova Scotia’s medical system is when we only focus on the problems,” said Dr. Gehad Gobran. “We need to continue to focus on working with our partners to fix the system issues for patients.”

He credits his colleagues and the health-care system for saving his life in 2013, when he suffered a serious medical issue as he was leaving a church service.

“Had the paramedics arrived just five minutes later, I would have died,” said Dr. Gobran. He thanks the paramedics and Emergency Health Services system for keeping him alive until he reached the emergency department and his colleagues for treating him.

Although he appreciates the health-care system, he recognizes it is under considerable strain, with a shortage of family physicians and under-resourced hospital services. “Wait times for certain investigations and surgeries are long. It’s concerning for patients and it’s also concerning for the physicians who are working so hard under these circumstances.”

Since 2008, Dr. Gobran has practised as a family physician at the Duffus Health Centre in Halifax. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Dalhousie University, takes shifts in community walk-in clinics and practises at the Newcomer Health Clinic in Halifax. He is also the medical director for the Sagewood Continuing Care Community in Sackville.

Born in Egypt, he completed a residency in family medicine before specializing in cardiology. He practiced as a cardiologist in Egypt for 12 years, until he decided to leave for Canada in 2003. He was seeking a safe place to raise his family and liked what he had heard about the Canadian health-care system.

He first became a clinical associate in cardiology at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax. In 2007, he wrote the Royal College of Family Physicians of Canada Certification Examination in Family Medicine He joined the Duffus Health Centre shortly after.

Dr. Gobran served a three-year term on the DNS Board of Directors (2019–22) and served on the association’s E-health and Audit committees and as a member of the Section of Family Doctors Council. He also chairs the Section of Long-term Care Physicians. In 2020, he completed Dalhousie Medical School’s Emerging Leaders in Academic Medicine program.

Also on Saturday, Doctors Nova Scotia members endorsed Dr. Shelly McNeil as President-Elect. Dr. McNeil is an infectious disease physician in Halifax. She is currently a professor in the faculties of Medicine and Pediatrics at Dalhousie University, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nova Scotia Health, and deputy head, academic, of the Dalhousie Department of Medicine. She is a clinician scientist and deputy director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology. Dr. McNeil served as the senior medical director of COVID Planning and Implementation for Nova Scotia Health throughout the pandemic and is now the senior medical director of the newly established Emerging and Re-emerging Infections Network. Dr. McNeil completed her medical education and internal medicine residency at Dalhousie University, followed by a three-year fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her term as president will begin in June 2025.