Holleford Resident, Dr. Curtis Nickel, Appointed As An Officer Of The Order Of Canada
Dr. Curtis Nickel was one of 15 distinguished appointees as an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 31 of last year. This might make him the first South Frontenac resident to receive such an honour, which is defined by the Governor General as an award that “Recognizes achievement and merit of a high degree, especially service to Canada or to humanity at large.”
Curtis Nickel met his future wife Karen (now celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary) when they were both in grade 1 in Belleville, and they have been together since their senior year in High School. After attending Queen's, they moved to Newfoundland in 1978, where Curtis did his training in General Surgery.
During their three years in Newfoundland, the couple had three children. After two more years in Kingston training to be a urological surgeon, Curtis decided to shift his focus dramatically. He left medicine to pursue research in micro-biology, which he had majored in as an undergrad. Working for a short time out of Calgary, he looked at what medicine could learn from microbiological advances in the oil industry and environmental microbiology.
While he returned to medicine back in Kingston, he brought his interest in microbiological processes with him, and that proved to be the initial basis of the research he has spearheaded for over 40 years. Advances discovered in Kingston have brought relief to men and women suffering from painful, non-malignant bladder and prostate conditions around the world, and that is what ultimately led the Governor-General to honour him all these years later.
Dr. Nickel started working as a urologist and researcher at Kingston Health Sciences Centre in 1985, moving to a farmhouse in the Elginburg area with Karen and their three children. While Curtis drove into Kingston every day, to the hospital and university, Karen taught in local schools including Elginburg and Storrington as well as several primary schools in Kingston.
Dr. Nickel saw and operated on patients as a clinical urologist, while at the same time establishing a research program, with the goal of finding a bacterial or viral cause for different conditions that his patients suffered from, including recurrent bladder infections and prostate conditions.
The understanding of bladders and other organs has changed dramatically since then, partly due to his work.
“When I was in medical school, we believed that the bladder was a sterile organ. Now we know it to be a veritable microbial jungle,” he said, in a phone interview this week. It has also turned out to be a very complicated jungle, important for both disease and health. But his initial goal of finding a single microbial cause for chronic conditions has proven to be elusive.
After his first decade in the basic science and animal laboratories modelling human diseases, he decided to “leave the rats and rabbits behind and go out to the real world. The thousands of patients I treat would become my research subjects..”
This proved to be a very successful enterprise. He co-founded the Queen’s Centre for Applied Urological Research with his mentor, Dr. Alvaro Morales, another past recipient of the Order of Canada, and that Centre continues to be at the forefront of developing novel and cutting-edge urological treatments.
Dr. Nickel, with the support of his dedicated research staff and clinical collaborators in Kingston and around the world has published over 600 research articles and books. He has received millions of dollars in funding from the US National Institutes of Health and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
He has presented papers in almost every US State and in over 60 countries around the world. This global outreach by Dr. Nickel and his team has brought clinical advances that have improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide.
This has brought awards and appointments to Dr. Nickel over the years, culminating in his appointment to the Order of Canada last month.
Until a few years ago he continued to see and treat patients while directing the research program, but has since found a replacement for his central role at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, the Research Centre and Queen’s University, Dr. Chris Doiron.
Dr. Nickel is currently Professor Emeritus at Queen's, and has an appointment as Research Associate at KHSC, supporting research, teaching and mentoring Dr. Doiron and urology trainees.
While pursuing his clinical practice and research, Curtis and Karen moved from Elginburg to Knowlton Lake in 2001. They had previously built a small cabin on the lake, with land that extended from the water to the edge of the Holleford Crater. They built a family home on the property in 2001, with a view of both the lake and the Crater. The expanded Lake House, which is now just a 10-minute walking commute from the Main House, has all the children and grandchildren visiting every long weekend, holiday and throughout much of the summer.
They have also established lasting friendships with their Holleford neighbours who have lived there for generations as well as the new people who have moved into the area over the past few decades. “We feel privileged to live in this beautiful area,” he said.
