Rocha leaving Westman after 25 years

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This article was published 30/08/2023 (768 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A southern Manitoba woman said she “teared up” when she learned that Dr. Guillermo Rocha — a renowned ophthalmologist based in Brandon — was leaving the community to accept a teaching position in Montreal.

For the past 25 years, Rocha has seen thousands of patients and performed countless more surgeries, including advanced cataract surgery with lens implants, astigmatism correction, glaucoma surgery and corneal transplantation, which Louise Carels said she and her family has had dozens of times.

“I’m not exaggerating to say we’ve all had more than 50 cornea transplants. Our family, including my mom, brother and I have a genetic condition called lattice corneal dystrophy,” Carels said.

“Our bodies deposit protein in our corneas that causes them to crumble. It’s like broken glass in our eyes. Without him, we’d be blind, none of us would be contributing members of society.”

Rocha arrived in Brandon from Mexico in 1998 with his wife Maria Paula and their two daughters, Maria and Andrea, for a job with the regional health authority he heard about through family connections.

Rocha is from Mexico, and obtained his medical degree in Mexico City, followed by a research position in Texas in microvascular surgery, which is performed on small blood vessels using a microscope, ultrafine sutures and specialized surgical instruments.

Rocha trained in ophthalmology at McGill University in Montreal with additional specialties including cornea and external diseases and ocular immunology and inflammation, which trains specialists to diagnose and manage rare diseases of the immune system that can affect the eyes.

Ever since he was a kid, Rocha said he knew he wanted to be a physician, and when he was in Grade 8 he became interested in surgery — thinking he would be a hand surgeon because he liked “the detail and the precision.”

“I fell in love with the microscope and the very detailed work that one can do. I was suturing blood vessels, and all sorts of things in animal surgery and doing very interesting projects. And then I began to discover that ophthalmology is not only surgery but is also medicine. It involves the body as a whole, and that actually appealed to me even more. So in my opinion, unbiased, it’s the best specialty in medicine,” Rocha said as he laughed.

Over the past 20 plus years, Rocha has been the medical director of TLC Laser Eye Centre/LMD Winnipeg, medical director of the Ocular Microsurgery and Laser Centre, as well as being on the active medical staff in the Brandon Regional Health Centre, Minnedosa Health Centre and Misericordia Health Centre.

Rocha has also been a teacher and mentor to medical students from universities across Canada, Spain and Mexico, which is something he said has helped keep him sharp.

“It’s very, very important to transfer skills because we have to think who’s going to do our surgeries down the line, and we need to transfer that. But we need to do it in a good and compassionate way with our learners and the patients in our care. If we want to stay on top of our game, we have to be teaching so that we can push our knowledge and push ourselves to be questioned by younger generations as to what we’re doing and whether or not what we’re doing is still the norm, or should we change our practice,” Rocha said.

It’s that passion for teaching and research that is taking Rocha back to McGill University in Montreal. His will be a dual role: chair of the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences, and chief of the division of ophthalmology for the McGill University Health Centre, which Rocha said is equivalent to a health region.

“The academic work involves training medical students, residents, and fellows — those are people who have finished ophthalmology and their residency. So, I already have two fellows lined up in Montreal to help with patient surgery, and I will be transferring skills to them. Plus, I’ll still be seeing patients, one day of surgery and two days of clinic.”

Patients at Rocha’s Brandon clinic will now be seen by a locum, which is a physician who will stand in temporarily until the replacement arrives in September.

In 1998, Rocha and his wife agreed to give Brandon “six months.” But because of the support he was given by the local health region — which he said provided equipment for him to do his job — and the friends they made, they were happy and decided to stay, and enjoyed Brandon.

Rocha insisted that they are leaving only because of the opportunity, and added how the whole family will miss their friends, Riding Mountain National Park, the staff at the clinic — who kept him sane, he added — and their patients.

“In these past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed it a bit because I’m seeing patients who I have known for 22 years, and I’m saying goodbye to many of them.

“What is humbling as a physician is to realize the trust that patients put on us, they are incredible in that regard. I remember patients who trusted me when I was doing a particular procedure for the very first time, and they said ‘go for it.’ Sometime if I was hesitant, they would say, ‘I trust you, doctor, let’s do it,’ and things went well. So I thank them for that.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

» X: @enviromichele