On February 28, 2023, Dr. François Lacombe achieved a remarkable achievement: He reached the mark of 10,000 deliveries in his 38-year career.
“It was special for me,” he admits. I spoiled the nurse who accompanied me that day by offering her a bottle of champagne. It was also his birthday that day. I also gave the newborn’s mother a beautiful three-foot-tall Mickey Mouse. There has been joy in this change.”
The delivery of this plush toy is not insignificant since the Laval resident has been nicknamed “DrDisney” for several years due to his association with Walt Disney.
This was reflected in his office at the Polyclinique Concorde, where an artificial dog tree was installed. It was filled with 546 Disney plush toys reminiscent of the Rainforest Café. To complete the decoration, the doctor added thousands of small lights to the ceiling, giving it the appearance of a starry sky.
“I didn’t want it to look like a doctor’s office,” noted Dr. Lacombe 2020 in an interview with Courrier Laval. “It’s more like a child’s room.” When young families come, they look at the ceiling. It’s the first thing they do.”
Three generations
After 38 years of service, Dr. Disney retired on June 30th. Staff at the Cité-de-la-Santé hospital marked the event by decorating the delivery room in Mickey Mouse style. The nurses also presented her with a trophy to highlight her 10,087 deliveries and 12,150 pregnancy follow-ups.
Several beautiful moments have marked the doctor’s career. One of them took place in January 2023.
“I have often given birth to two different generations, but this time it was the third generation. I attended to the birth of the child’s mother in 2003 and his grandmother, which was my third birth ever, in 1984. I felt a little nostalgic as I was now a great-grand doctor,” he said with a laugh.
successes
Dr. François Lacombe is also notable for the numerous umbilical cord blood samples he had carried out throughout his career.
This “uncomplicated gesture” allows Héma-Québec to have a public umbilical cord blood stem cell bank that can be used to treat patients suffering from serious illnesses. “I took more than 4,000 samples and was told that almost 10% of them were transplanted, which would equate to 400 lives saved,” calculates the Laval doctor.
When he retired, Héma-Québec hired him as a consultant to help communicate with patients. He also continues his family practice at the clinic with the clients he has met over the years because he “couldn’t stop suddenly, it wouldn’t have made any sense.”
The doctor from Île Jésus also assures that he will continue to contribute in his own way to the Cité de la Santé Foundation, which he has supported for many years.
He had to remove his dog tree from the clinic for work reasons. However, he has found a second life for it, as it will be the centerpiece of an escape game invented by his boy, opening soon in Shawinigan.