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“I am not a saint. I view it as going back to things I love. I feel invigorated. I enjoy it. I like the people. I can hang out with those guys and enjoy every minute of it and I never get tired of it. To be honest, it is being a little bit selfish.”

Photo by Darren Brown / Postmedia

Turnbull has a quiet, hands-on bedside manner when he meets with patients, most who have complex lives, addiction issues and multiple health problems. He jokes with patients and frequently holds their hands. Among the first lessons he learned in the shelters, he says, is not to judge.

“You are a star,” he says to Jeannie Lee, an injection drug user who has been taking oral opioids prescribed through Inner City Health to try to keep her from buying drugs on the street, at the end of a brief visit.

At The Ottawa Hospital, Turnbull sits on committees and helps direct policy decisions that, he says, can make a difference to the care that is provided to a large number of people. It is important work.

But his work with Inner City Health, he says, allows him to directly influence the health of individuals, and that gives meaning to what he does.

“Here you can make a big difference in a small community who really need it.”

Turnbull jokes he “won’t get rich” in his new role. He essentially does it for no pay. Many of the clients he works with don’t have OHIP cards. Some do. In the past, he has folded back any money he made through billing into the clinic for supplies and salaries and donated some of his hospital salary.