Dr. Gear and her husband, Dr. Frank Berkman, a cardiologist at the Cardiac Unit (now called The University of Ottawa Heart Institute), lived across the street from the hospital so she could be at the Civic in minutes to deliver a baby. Dr. Gear had a practice in the basement of her home with a full-time nurse.
“Her nurse was like another grandmother to us,” recalls Dr. Gear’s daughter, Janet Berkman. “She’d come up at noon and join us for lunch.”
Janet also remembers many men over the years parked in the driveway of their home on Melrose Avenue, too uncomfortable to come inside with their wives.
“Mom loved the people at the Civic Hospital,” Janet adds. “She did rounds there every morning and was there all the time for deliveries. The Civic was almost like her second home.”
