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BORN
1945
DIED
2024
Victor BLANCHETTE Obituary
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Memories and Condolences
for Victor BLANCHETTE
16 Entries
Nihal Bakeer
May 14, 2024
Dr. B,
It is so hard to navigate the field without you by our side. You are a true visionary and you never hesitated to advocate for your patients and the hemostasis thrombosis field all together. You pushed us to do better and want better for our patients. Only you could bring experts from all around the world and from multiple specialties (PT, RN, Hematologist, Ortho, Rheum, Radiology, Artificial Intelligence, Epidemiologist...and more) to fly to Toronto to meet and discuss ultrasound in haemophilia well before anyone else believed in this technology for bleeding disorder patients. I will never forget your smile, attentiveness to literally everyone at that meeting and dinner. Thank you for being you, thank you for caring about everyone, thank you for sharing your love for Yvonne and the kids with us and reminding us that we can have it all and be great doctors, researchers and parents/spouses. Thank you for all you did and I'll be looking for you in the rainbows and the cardinals that visit me. You are reunited with Yvonne now and I know your heart is complete. I know you missed her dearly. Rest in peace and trust me we will make you proud and we will continue your work. My sincerest condolences to the Blanchette family and friends.
Nihal
Olympia Papakonstantinou, Associate Professor Nationa University of Athens
May 14, 2024
Dr Blanchette was bright person, doctor, mentor , a cornerstone in his field worldwide. My sincere condolences to his family.
Amy Shapiro
May 12, 2024
Victor will be missed by many around the world. Victor was a beloved colleague and friend. Victor was an inspiration, a kind and supportive colleague and caregiver. His legacy and memory live on in his work and in the hearts of all he touched.
Julie, Jim, Dominic and Eloise Curtin
May 11, 2024
To the most amazing mentor who became a dear friend, we are so grateful to have you in our lives. I was so privileged to be introduced to Dr B on my first day at Sick Kids, starting a fellowship and not being sure where it would lead me. Dr B took me under his wing and I never looked back. I was one of the first fellows under him, even before the days of the Baxter Fellowship that he subsequently established. Being a fellow of Dr B's is like joining an elite club and we all have an amazing bond which will stay strong long into the future. He knew how to push the fellows just hard enough to get the best out of them, as well as how important it was to reward the fellows. I experienced that as a fellow myself: 24 hours before the abstract deadline for 1997 ISTH, Dr B convinced me that it was worth submitting an abstract that I wasn't so sure about. Lo and behold I was given an oral presentation for it - my first at an international conference. I was so proud and grateful for that push. But that wasn't all - he challenged me further and had me speaking in front of the VWD subcommittee session at that same meeting with about 300 people in the room. He had the foresight and faith to know that I could do it. After that meeting in Florence, Dr B took his haemostasis team up to Sweden to meet with the team from the Karolinska Institute. This was the reward for all are hard work and I have great memories of that ITP meeting on the island north of Stockholm. Our club of Dr B's fellows has since grown with fellows now spread around the world continuing the great work that he started and trained us for. Still pushing right up to his passing he has us all working on the next edition of the Sick Kids Handbook - another great legacy of Dr B.
But Dr B became much more than a mentor, he became a friend. He got to know my family and would visit us at home whenever he was in Sydney. We loved having Dr B and Yvonne visit us. Dominic and Eloise have fond memories of these too and Eloise told me that she still treasures "Roko-Coco" (her name for the soft toy Dr B and Yvonne gave her on one of these trips) Roko-Coco travelled on our big trip around Australia with us in our big red truck and still shares her bed each night.
We loved to hear the stories of Dr B's boys - he was so proud of all of them, and I was truly blessed to visit his home last July and share his lake walk with him.
Thanks Dr B for the inspiration, memories and friendship. He will be missed, but his legacy will live on in both through his children and grandchildren, as well as through all the fellows he has trained.
Love Julie, Jim, Dominic and Eloise Curtin
Corrine Sin Quee
May 11, 2024
This is so very sad for all of us.
Hopefully the great personal memories and knowledge of the impact he made throughout his life for so many patients and physicians and allied health persons and scientists will bring some peace and comfort to his beloved family.
It was an honor to have known him and to have the pleasure of working so closely with him.
Deepest condolences from all of us here in the Bahamas.
Corrine Sin Quee.
Ted Garrard
May 10, 2024
To the entire Blanchette family,
What a privilege it was to work alongside Victor at SickKids and to help fulfil his dreams for the SickKids Caribbean Initiative. It was fateful that I came to know Richard and Margaret in connection with Western before knowing Victor and that his son was the resident on call at Sunnybrook when I had to take my mother there during the last stages of her life. Monica, thank you for always making all of us associated with the SCI as welcome in your home. Yvonne and family, may Victor´s life and memories be a blessing to you. I can hear him as he gallops around the race track, "we can do this, can´t we Ted?"
Ted Garrard, C.M.
Former CEO, SickKids Foundation
Guy Young
May 9, 2024
I met Victor probably 2 decades ago when I was getting my own hematology career going and we worked together on a number of projects and most recently on The Executive Committee of IPSG. What strikes most is that even though I am more than 20 years Victor's junior, I was always treated as an equal. Not once was Victor condescending nor patronizing even when I was much more junior in my career. I would have to remind myself that I am with one of the most well-known, well-respected pedatric hematologists in the world, and what that speaks to is Victor's humility, an amazing and yet not all that common quality among the elite experts in the world. Rest in peace Victor and know that your legacy will live on for decades to come.
Sheila Weitzman
May 9, 2024
This is a very hard thing to do- not to write a tribute to Victor - that part is easy, but to write it because he has passed on - very tough and even hard to believe. Victor had an indomitable spirit which dealt with easier times and tougher times with the same grace and goodwill and always with a smile. We were colleagues and friends since he was recruited to Sickkids by Dr Alvin Zipursky in 1983, CHEOs loss and SICKKIDS gain for sure. For 12 of the subsequent years he was also my boss, head of the Division of Hematology/ Oncology at Sickkids and a better boss and colleague could not be imagined. The first few years were not easy for reasons unrelated to him personally,and Victor steered the Division through those difficult times calmly and competently and with grace. During his tenure as Division head he oversaw major changes in the way in which the Division was organized, implementing a sectional model which made us significantly more efficient in our clinical care and more productive in our research endeavours. This was done with such care and respect for individuals within the program that it took us a long time to appreciate the firmness with which he steered us toward goals that he strongly believed were best - and he was pretty much always right.
I look back and can only smile in appreciation of the skill which allowed him to make difficult decisions and see that they were implemented without antagonizing anyone- if it didn´t work the first time he backed off and came at it from a different direction and lo and behold it worked.
I was also privileged to be associated with Victor as part of the Sickkids Caribbean initiative. Suffice it to say that without Vic´s courage, dedication and sheer hard work, SCI would never have gotten off the ground to the detriment of us all.
We all owe such a debt of gratitude to Victor for everything that he did and even more for everything that he was. To put it in the simplest terms Victor Blanchette was a good man. I was greatly privileged to have known him.
He will be sadly missed.
Natsaruth Songthawee
May 9, 2024
It is with much sadness to receive a sad new that Prof. Victor Blanchette passed away and please pass my deepest condolences to Dr.B' family. I write this post to tribute to Dr. Blanchette´s contribution to Pediatric Hemato/Oncology in Thailand and myself.
It is a great honor to be a fellow in Pediatric Hemostasis and Thrombosis Program during 2017-2019 at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), under the supervision of Dr. Blanchette. During the first month of my fellowship training with a lot of pressure, cultural shock and language adaptation, he was the only person who came to visit me during my weekend on-call to asked me `how life is goin´. Every word and time he spent with me are like a power that encourage me to move on and never gave up until I finished the fellowship program.
I also would like thanks for Dr.Blanchette for his supports and contributions to our collaboration over years aiming to improve hemophilia and allied bleeding disorders in Thailand.
Dr.B...You will be missed and always be in my memory,
Nats (the new nickname that you gave to me)
Tara Robinson
May 9, 2024
I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Blanchette through IPSG, and it was an honor to know him. His contributions to people with hemophilia around the world are remarkable and will live on. My condolences are with his family and I hope your happy memories carry you through this time.
Brian and May Luke
May 9, 2024
Our deepest condolences. My friendship with Victor spanned 45 years and over his whole career. Our best times together were during his first four years working in Ottawa and over the last 17 years working on our collaborative projects in China. Victor had a very positive attitude to live and carry on his work right to the last few months. Victor is a friend, colleague and leader I knew, valued respected and loved and now dearly miss and treasure.
Now farewell, rest in peace and rejoice holding hands with Yvonne in Heaven
Your dear friend, Brian.
Lydia Abad-Franch
May 9, 2024
My sincere condolences to the Blanchette family.
Victor was a truly inspiring physician, bright and kind, always caring for patients and for those around him.
It has been an honor having the opportunity to meet him, to learn from him and to work with him in so many projects.
He will be deeply missed
Rest in peace
DR. KAAN KAVAKLI FROM TURKEY
May 9, 2024
Victor was a great scientific man. He was a restless man as well.
He is not able to be forgotten.
Runhui WU
May 8, 2024
As a hemophilia pediatrician at Beijing Children's Hospital, I first met Dr Blanchette in 2008 and embarked on a 16-year journey of professional training and China-Canada cooperation.
The collaborative work has gradually guided and supported the transformation of Chinese child hemophilia framework from a simple clinical practice to the targeted clinical research. The work has effectively supported the improvement of Chinese children hemophilia prophylaxis level, and greatly increased the proportion of Chinese child hemophilia prophylaxis, without increasing treatment costs, in a difficult environment constrained by economic conditions. This has enabled Chinese hemophilia children to first "bid farewell to wheelchairs and return to school", and then achieve "running as normal children", benefiting millions of Chinese hemophilia patients and families.
As a pioneer in the field, Dr. Blanchette's professionalism is admirable. In the past five years, blocked by the epidemic, we are unable to communicate effectively offline, however, Dr Blanchette had organized dozens of online meetings and actively promoted the progress of children's hemophilia work in China and Canada by himself in the straggle against cancer. What impressed us deeply is that just 2 months ago, he also organized and chaired online cooperation and communication meetings while sick, and arranged work arrangements. Whenever I think of Dr Blanchette, his bright eyes, kind smile, and deep voice are deeply imprinted in the minds of me and everyone in our team.
All Chinese children's hemophilia medical colleagues deeply mourn the loss of a leader and a sincere international friend. I hope we can continue to uphold his great spirit and ideas, continue to complete his unfinished tasks, maintain the long-standing cooperation between China and Canada in the field of children's hemophilia, and continue to benefit children around the world.
Annie Kaplan
May 8, 2024
Dear Blanchette Family,
Dr. Victor Blanchette was a man amongst men.
In Hebrew, he was a mensch. He cared and loved people. I will miss him.
Annie Kaplan
JAN WEEL
May 4, 2024
My deepest sympathies to every member of Victor's family. Victor was a noble man who used the gifts God gave him to the full. May Victor rest in peace and rise in glory. And may the Lord strengthen each one of you and surround you with His peace and love, now and always.
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