He’s remembered as a large, teddy bear of a man, always ready to listen and offer wise advice. But Dr. Bill Kingston’s greatest assets were his healing hands. The late Dr. Kingston was the founder of sport medicine in Nova Scotia, one of the first in his field to recognize that athletes need specialized treatment to promote fast healing of injuries. After all, a sidelined athlete is an unhappy athlete. That’s one lesson Dr. Kingston appreciated in the early going, and he was happy to pass it on to others.

Bill Kingston was born in Saskatchewan in 1926 to blue collar parents. He was the first member of his family to complete university. But Kingston didn’t follow the traditional route to medical school. He first spent time in the navy, worked as an instructor for the YMCA and was a travelling salesman for CIBA Pharmaceuticals. But no matter what career he was involved in, he always had a love for sports.

In 1966, after completing medical school at Dalhousie University, Dr. Kingston was working at a clinic in Newfoundland with the intention of staying in that area. But Dal made an offer that was too good to refuse: Dr. Kingston became head of Dalhousie Student Health, responsible for offering health care to students and caring for the varsity sports teams.

This combined his love of sport and medicine – to him, the best possible career. From his small dorm space and a limited budget, he created the clinic that would eventually develop into today’ s Nova Scotia Sport Medicine Clinic.

“He was a very classic family doctor who just happened to become the head of Dal Student Health,” says Dr. Bill Stanish, who first met Dr. Kingston at Dalhousie when he was a young athlete, then a medical student. “He was very compassionate and his ability to communicate was a great inspiration to people.”

“He loved working with the students who were part of the athletic program. That became one his prime loves, because we’re talking about people who were inspired and anxious to get back, not bellyaching about their maladies.”

Dr. Bob Stalker, another familiar name in Nova Scotia sport medicine, says Dr. Kingston had a great influence on the people around him. His enthusiasm and commitment encouraged others to specialize and helped the field to grow, says Dr. Stalker.

“He certainly inspired a number of people to get in- volved in looking after athletes in a more scientific manner.”

Longtime Dal trainer Richard Slaunwhite says Dr. Kingston had a great talent of relating to other people. His experience in various fields of employment, prior to becoming a physician, prepared him well for his final career.

“He didn’t just go to school and become a doctor; he worked at other things. He had a different outlook, a way of treating everybody as equals, making everybody feel they were relatively important to whatever job they were doing.”

After more than a decade at Dalhousie, Dr. Kingston opted for a simpler life. He departed Halifax in 1979 for L’ Ardoise, Cape Breton, where he established an advanced rural clinic that today bears his name.

He passed away in 1985, after a career devoted to caring for others. His contribution to sport medicine stands as a stellar example of selflessness on behalf of the young athletes on Nova Scotia.

Bio Courtesy of Marilla Stephenson