Dr. Max Buxton , BScHons / 80

If you think the emergency room is a stressful place to work, imagine being a physician on the edge of the world. Max Buxton, a physician in the rural community of Renfrew, has done both.

Buxton was the team physician for the Polar Bridge Joint Canadian-Soviet Ski Expedition over the Arctic from the Soviet Union to Canada in 1988 and for the Canada Everest Expedition in 2000.

Closer to home, Buxton has held the positions of vice-president of medical staff at the Renfrew Victoria Hospital, secretary-treasurer for the Renfrew County Medical Society. Aboard, he worked a primary care physician in Prague, Czeck Republic, for a year.

In 1988, Buxton was given the Order of Friendship of Nations by the prime minister of the U.S.S.R. A year later, he received the Pierre De Coubertin Award for Fairplay from the Secretary General, UNESCO.