A DOCTOR IN THE WEST Morris Gibson. Toronto, Collins, c1983. 222pp, cloth, $19.95. ISBN 0-00-217119-5. Grades 10 and up. Reviewed by George Hoffman. Volume 12 Number 3 1984 May Like Gibson's acclaimed previous book, One Man's Medicine, A Doctor in the West is a well-written, anecdotal, humorous account. The incidents Gibson chooses to relate show him to be not only a dedicated doctor but a warm human being with a fine sense of humour. Gibson does not attempt to analyze the western Canadian society of which he became a part in the 1950s. Rather he chooses to do what he can do very well and that is to describe how he and his wife, both urban, cultured, educated doctors from Britain saw the West and its people at that stage of its development. The adjustment surely was not easy; there was much about Okotoks (and hundreds of other communities like it) that was parochial. Significantly, however, the Gibsons stayed and came to love and serve these people who undoubtedly at first seemed so different from them. That perhaps is a central message of this book: ordinary Canadians in their own way accepted this family from Britain, and in turn the Gibsons became a part of this rural prairie community. A Doctor in the West gives insight into one of the meanings of being Canadian. People came to Canada over the centuries. They adjusted to a new society and at the same time changed it. The end result of this long process is modern Canada, a nation the Gibsons can say they contributed to. George Hoffman, Weyburn C. S., Weyburn, SK.