Dr. Kwadwo Asante: Pioneering pediatrician in diagnosing and treating FASD in Canada

In the early 1970s, Dr. Kwadwo Ohene Asante was the only pediatrician serving Northern B.C. He was seeing numerous children with unexplained physical deformities who were missing milestones of childhood development. Initially, the thinking was that it was a unique problem faced by Northern children. Then, one day, a colleague sent him an article published in the Lancet by researchers at the University of Washington that described what he was seeing in his patients. It was the first article published in English on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), then known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). “We discovered it could be a problem for anyone who used alcohol,” he told Robert Matas of the Globe and Mail in 2010. Since it was preventable, he said he thought it would disappear once people the risks of drinking during pregnancy. “I did not realize it would turn out to be my lifetime work,” he said. Dr. Asante began to advocate for people with FASD, and to educate the public about the dangers of drinking while pregnant, from that day onward. He’s never stopped, even though he’s been retired for several years. “As far as we know, he was the first pediatrician in Canada to start diagnosing, the first to start researching FAS within Canada and has carried that part of his work through the rest of his career up and including present day,” explained Allison Wong, a special projects consultant at the Asante Centre, which specializes in the diagnosis, treatment and care of people with FASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Asante and two colleagues formed the centre more than 20 years ago. His advocacy included meeting with all levels of government, speaking at conferences, and mentoring and training other physicians and healthcare professionals. “He lives it and breathes it,” Wong said. Dr. Asante’s early research focused on the prevalence of FASD in Canada, and in specific populations within Canada. He also helped develop the first diagnostic standards, helping to highlight the need for a multi-disciplinary diagnosis so that psychiatric features were included. “Any work being done about FASD in Canada, Dr. Asante had a voice at that table,” Wong said. Read: U.K. booze study ‘set us back years' Dr. Asante himself was not available for an interview. Now 89, Dr. Asante is enjoying retirement by living part-time in Mexico, although, like any true advocate, he still keeps abreast of the work of the Centre and takes any chance to talk about FASD. Wong said Dr. Asante learned Spanish so he could speak about FASD while in Mexico. As well as being the only pediatrician in Northern B.C., Dr. Asante also was alone in providing pediatric services to patients in the Yukon for a number of years. The story goes that Dr. Asante was on holiday in the Yukon when he decided to tour a hospital. His visit happened just as a woman was going through a difficult labour. Dr. Asante assisted and ended up developing great relationships with the people in the hospital, which led to serving patients in the Yukon. “Just because he was there on family vacation and was put in a situation where he could help, and did. That’s the kind of person he is,” Wong said. Dr. Asante provided care for a lot of families who lived in poverty. Wong said there are many stories of how he helped a child get to the B.C. Children’s Hospital despite the family not being able to afford travel. Sometimes he’d bring the child with him on a plane ride to Vancouver, with the parent’s consent, Wong said. Wong said that former patients still come through the Asante Centre's door with stories of how Dr. Asante dug a little deeper and saved a child’s life. Dr. Asante is the oldest of eight children, born into a family of teachers in southern Ghana, he told the Globe and Mail. His mother’s father was a Methodist missionary and his father’s father was a Presbyterian missionary, and books were always around the house. He won scholarships to pay his way through high school, where he decided to become a doctor. He went to the University of British Columbia for his undergraduate degree, and later earned his medical degree at the University of Glasgow in 1964. He returned to Vancouver, completing his residency in pediatrics. He chose pediatrics because he thought it would be useful in Ghana, he told the Globe and Mail. The country was unstable for many years following its independence from Great Britain in 1957 and so Dr. Asante delayed his return. Instead, he started working in Northern B.C., staying in Terrace, B.C. for 20 years. “I started my own practice and found out I was needed there,” he said. He was the medical director of Kitimat child development centre from 1973 to 1990. He moved back to Vancouver in 1990, where he was a professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia. For his work, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal of Canada in 2003, the Black Business Professionals Harry Jerome Award for Health Sciences in 2007, the B.C. Pediatric Society’s Dr. Judith Hall Award in 2011, and was a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal recipient in 2012. He was elected an honourary senior member of the Canadian Medical Association in 2000. He spoke to the Globe and Mail in 2010 about how Canada should help train doctors in Ghana. Dr. Assante has inspired researchers there to do prevalence studies on FASD. “Things that are happening in Canada are happening in other parts of world too,” he said. “The needs of children are the same, in Canada and in Africa, and we should all contribute to help children, wherever we are.” Read: I’m an addiction researcher and therapist. Here’s why promoting sober ‘dry months’ bothers me

Dr. Kwadwo Asante: Pioneering pediatrician in diagnosing and treating FASD in Canada

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