Profile

“It’s such a powerful feeling when you are in the delivery room. When the baby lets out their first cry, there’s this special surge of beautiful, exhausted energy — just us and the family, all experiencing the miracle of life.”

Vancouver’s Dr. Sophia Chong set her sights on becoming a surgeon nearly 40 years ago while attending medical school at Queen’s University. But one internship changed the course of her life: she helped deliver 100 babies in just six weeks. “I teared up for the first dozen, it moved me so much,” she says.

That experience led her to choose family medicine — and she fell in love with it. Today, the respected President of the Vancouver Branch of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada and member of multiple clinical advisory groups has stayed connected to that miracle for more than three decades, delivering more than 1,000 newborns in B.C.

“Of course, there is stress and sometimes heartbreak, yet it is always an honour and a privilege to be part of my patients’ lives so deeply,” says Dr. Chong. “The trust you feel in these moments is rare and unique.”

Her family practice spans newborn care for babies and prenatal care for pregnant women to palliative care at end of life — a range that has allowed Dr. Chong to care for as many as five generations of the same family. She says these experiences gave her glimpses of parenthood before she became a mother of two, and of caregiving for older adults long before her own parents reached their senior years.

Over the years, she has embraced the prevention-first focus of family medicine, and continues to routinely share what she’s learned with patients to help them put their health first.

Dr. Chong, one of only a few visible minorities in her graduating class in 1992, says she is proud to be Canadian because of its diversity and inclusiveness. She does what she can to ensure the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are alive and well in her clinic.

“I have a very multicultural and demographically diverse practice, and I have the chance and responsibility to treat everyone the same,” says Dr. Chong, who also provides care in Mandarin. “I think we have to do everything we can to make sure our health workforce looks like the people who come to us needing care.”

Being able to access that care, she says, is paramount. If she could wave a wand, Dr. Chong would ensure every Canadian has their own family doctor and equal access to the best medicine — rather than access determined by what they can afford.

“Medications can be so expensive, but these little pills can save people from dialysis, strokes and heart disease,” she says. “It shouldn’t come down to the haves and the have-nots, but the unfortunate truth is that those who can afford better drugs will do better. The inability to get some patients what they need most is a moral injury for healthcare workers almost every day.”

Those challenges are compounded by high patient loads and admin work, which have helped fuel burnout in the profession. Dr. Chong, despite her decades of experience, remembers the toll she felt during COVID-19. “You know something is wrong when you are crying in front of patients.”

To counterbalance the stress, she began solving puzzles such as Sudoku that activate the other side of her brain — a strategy she was surprised to find quite effective. Since the start of 2024, she has taken time off every month in order to maintain the mental capacity and energy needed to provide thoughtful care to her patients. She admits that prioritizing mental health is hard and unnatural for physicians, but that it is nonetheless essential.

Dr. Chong has been an MD Financial Management (MD) client since the day she earned her medical degree in 1992. She trusts MD with all her financial assets, insurance and estate matters because of the relationship and returns she has experienced with her MD Advisor* over the past three-plus decades.

She is conservative and happily frugal with her finances, perhaps the natural result of being one of the lowest-paid family physicians in Canada throughout her first 30 years of practice and living in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

“I’m a woman, a family doctor and have historically made less than other practitioners,” says Dr. Chong. “But now we are among the highest paid … it’s a huge change.”

She joined the MD Physician Council to give back to colleagues who might be struggling in their early-career days, overcoming the impacts of COVID-19 or contending with financial pressures. One idea she enjoys passing on to young doctors is the value of owning clinic space rather than renting — something she has done for 33 years.

“If I did it all again … if someone gives you an opportunity, and you know you like that practice, it would be smart to own that building.”

In all, she is eager to contribute what she can to the Council — bringing a long perspective on what physicians need, from their first days in medical school to the years nearing retirement.

That lens is akin to the lifelong care she has provided to thousands of patients in the Lower Mainland, from a newborn's first day of life, to expecting mothers, to 100 year old seniors.

“I love being a doctor,” she says.