John Cocker - Ric Mazereeuw

John
Cocker
Photo . Susan Dohson
F
youR DocroR chuckledthroughyour
last checkup, John Cocker might have had
something to do with it. Two-and-a-half years
agothe Newmarket, Ont., physician lirunched
Punch Digestfor Canadian Doctors, and the
medical world has been
tittering ever since.
The collection of humorous medicalanecdotes
and cartoons, modelled loosely on the British
Punch magazine, has already outlived ils namesake and now boasts the fastest
growing read-
"lt'sthe
ership of medicaljournals in Canada.
one they read in the bathroom, " says Cocker.
) And read it they do. While many magazines
have shrunk or folded during the recession,
Punch Digestis growing, and has started turn-
ing
a
tidy profit,
times.
>
a
rarity even in the best of
Apart from penning a regular column
called."Proctalgia"-Greek
ass"-the 58-year-old
a
John Cocker, m6decin de Newmarket (Ontario) a lanc6 le
or "pain in the
similar magazine for the lucrative
and
L Y A DEUX ANs ET DEMI,
has
f
just launched Stitches,
sion.
is
US
market,
gauging the potential for a British ver-
) The transition {rom family physician to
magazine Punch Digestfor Canadian Doctors. Ce recueil d'anecdotes et de bandes dessin6es
entrepreneur came i n 1 984 after
humoristiques sur le monde m6dical, inspi16 vaguement du magazine anglais Punch, survit
sabbatical with his wife, crossing the Atlantic
d6jA
i
ce
dernier et connait,actuellement I'augmentation du nombre de lecteurs la plus
a th
ree-year
and winding through Europe's waterways on a
rapide de toutes les revues m6dicales du Canada. Tandis que de nombreux magazines ont,
39-ft- sailboat, ln the mid-'80s he opened
pendant la r6cession, perdu du volume ou cess6 de publier,
Punch Digest n'a pas cess6 de
string of walk-in medical clinics and started
croitre et il est devenu pas mal rentable, un fait rare pour un nouveau magazine, m6me
-mot grec qui veut dire <6pine au pied>-le m6decin de 58 ans vient de lancer sur le lucratif
what he says was the f irst phone-in medical
info line in Canada. ) Surely one ofthe few
publishers qualified to drive a tank (from his
march6 am6ricain un magazine semblable qu'il.a intitul6 Stitches. ll 6tudie 69alerhent la
days
possibilit6 d'en lancer une version britannique.
avid pilot who just built
dans des conditions trds favorables. > Outre sa chronique reguliere intitulee
<
Proctalgia>
> C'est en 1984 due ce m6decin de
devenu entrepreneur, aprds un cong6 de trois ans. Au milieu des ann6es 80,
i
I
a
famille est
ouvert une
s6rie de cliniques de consultation sans rendez-vous et inaugur6 ce qu'il dit avoir 6t6 la pre-
with the Canadian army), Cocker
a
is
also an
two-seat ull.ralight
from a kit in record time. "lt was my Valium,"
says Cocker.
"But I still did it like
a
workaholic."
mi€re ligne t6l6phonique d'information m6dicale au Canada. ) Certainement I'un des rares
€diteurs qualifi6s pour conduiie un char d'assaut (il a d6jd fait partie des Forces arm6es
canadiennes), Cocker est 4galement un pilote enthousiaste qui vient d'achever en un temps
record la construction, d partir d'un pr6t'ir-monter, d'un ultral6ger d deux places- <Je l'ai
pour me d6tendre, dit-il,
20
ce
qui ne m'a pas emp6ch6 de travailler comme un forcen6.o
a
fait
BY. PAR RIC MAZEREEUW
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