July 18, 1936 (Regina)–November 9, 2025 (Vancouver)
By Peter Wing, MB ChB MSc FRCS(C)
We remember Dr. Joseph “Joe” Schweigel, a key figure in the development of the Spine Program in British Columbia and a vital leader in the care of people with spinal cord injuries.
Joe Schweigel attended Vancouver College from 1950 to 1954, then entered Engineering at UBC, where he later switched to medicine. He lost a year to meningitis but still graduated from UBC in 1962.
In 1962/63, he completed an internship in Toronto, where he also met his wife, Bonnie, and then practiced as a GP in Oakville, Ontario, for a year. He began his surgical residency at VGH in 1964, completed his orthopaedic training in 1968, and then stayed on as a fellow, obtaining his FRCS(C) in 1969.
Professor Frank Patterson had wanted to see Orthopaedic Surgery evolve from a division of Surgery at UBC to become a full Department with 8 divisions, including Spine. He suggested that Dr. Schweigel should start an Acute Spinal Cord Injury Unit (ASCIU) and, with a grant from the Vancouver Foundation, he spent a year as a fellow at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital with Dr. Conal Wilmot.
Dr. WJ ‘Bill’ Thompson, stationed at Shaughnessy Hospital during WW2 and later head of orthopaedics there, introduced the use of the Harrington Rod for scoliosis treatment to Canada’s West Coast and was open to Shaughnessy Hospital becoming a centre of expertise in Spine care.
Dr. Steve Tredwell was about four years behind Joe Schweigel in residency and recalls that Joe Schweigel was the junior staff at Vancouver General Hospital to whom the junior residents would go with any question because of his excellent organization of the material required for fellowship examination. For at least two years, Joe was rated the best teacher in his field by the medical students. He also started a weekly anatomic dissection for residents at VGH.
Dr. Tredwell also went through Rancho Los Amigos as a North American Travelling Fellow some time after Joe Schweigel and was impressed at the level of gait analysis. The senior surgeons there, Vernon Nickel and Jacquelin Perry, were two “giants of their day” who greatly advanced the understanding of the biomechanics of the spine.
Dr. Schweigel returned from Rancho with many insights into rehabilitation and spine care. He introduced the halo-thoracic brace, used for many years to support early mobilisation and rehab following cervical fractures with or without paralysis, until technical developments in cervical spine instrumentation provided a better solution for many injuries. He joined the medical staff at GF Strong Rehab and at Shaughnessy Hospital.
The ASCIU, planned by Joe Schweigel with neurosurgeon Skip Peerless, opened at Shaughnessy Hospital with 22 beds on May 6, 1975, admitting patients in most cases within 24 hours of injury and embodying rehabilitation principles from the moment of admission. This was definitely Joe’s major achievement that he was justifiably proud of. Doug Mowat, then CEO of the BC Paraplegic Association and an MLA, was very supportive of the program. A multidisciplinary team worked with each patient with regular interdisciplinary rounds. Once clinically stable and mobilizing, the patients’ rehabilitation could continue seamlessly at the neighbouring GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre.
Schweigel encouraged bioengineer Dr. James Foort, who had joined the Faculty of Medicine in 1971, to develop the Medical Engineering Research Unit, which opened in the old morgue building at Shaughnessy in 1979.
Schweigel recognized that the Spine surgical approaches of the day for lumbar disc herniation required an extensive exposure of the anatomy. He was an early adopter of chemonucleolysis using the proteolytic papain enzyme (from papaya), which dissolved the nuclear disc material and was shown to help some patients with sciatica. However, the potential for life-threatening allergy (anaphylaxis in 0.5-1%) and a rather high failure rate led to the exploration of mechanical disc enucleation using Onik’s percutaneous technique. (This was only suitable for a contained disc herniation.)
In 1993, the Ministry of Health announced a planned closure of Shaughnessy Hospital to be completed over the following year. Spine surgery was to be a dedicated group practise for its neurosurgical and orthopaedic member surgeons, with all new members to be fellowship trained. Planning had to begin to transfer the ASCIU, the elective components, and the supportive structures of the Spine Program to Vancouver General Hospital, where they remain.
Joe Schweigel continued to work with the team until his retirement in 2001, shortly before his 65th birthday. He is survived by Bonnie, 4 children, 12 grandchildren.
