Honorary Member 2010 - Colonel Maureen Haberstock!Colonel Haberstock enrolled in the Medical Officer Training Plan in 1972 and received her MD in 1975 from the University of Saskatchewan. She served as a general duty medical officer at CFB Esquimalt from 1976 to 1979, during which time she was the first female to qualify as a Ship's Diving Officer.
She was voluntarily released in 1979 and carried on a full family medicine practice from 1979 until 1990, with an emphasis on GP obstetrics. From 1982 until 1990 she was also active in the Medical Reserves, completing militia command and staff training and serving as Commanding Officer of 11 Medical Company (Victoria) from 1987 to 1990, the first female physician to command an Army Field Unit.
In 1990 she transferred back to the Regular Force as Deputy Commanding Officer of 1 Field Ambulance, managing the integration of women into that Regular Force unit. In 1991, she deployed to Gulf War I as Treatment Company Commander with 1 Cdn Fd Hospital forward elements in support of 1 UK Armoured Division during the ground battle. For her efforts during the conflict in ensuring excellent care for hundreds of Iraqi prisoners of war, she received the CF Middle East Commander's commendation.
She has also deployed to Ethiopia and Djibouti with the grain lift humanitarian mission Op Preserve, to Rwanda as Force Medical Officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission for nine months in 1995, and domestically for Op Recuperation (Quebec Ice Storm) in 1998.
She has been senior physician at Combat Training Center Gagetown and headed the closure of Canadian Forces Hospital in Lahr, Germany. She has also served as senior medical advisor for both the Army Headquarters of Atlantic and Western Canada, and was Commanding Officer of 1 Field Ambulance from 1997 to 1999, during which time she was admitted to the Order of Military Merit in 1998 and named the Edmonton CTV “Woman of Vision” for 1999.
More recently she has served from 2000 to 2004 as Canadian Defence Liaison Staff military medical liaison officer in Washington, the first female to hold an attaché position for the Canadian Forces. During that posting she was a guest lecturer at Howard University Medical School, the Georgetown University School of Public Health, Industrial College of the Armed Forces and United Services University of Health Sciences.
She then headed the medical policy and standards section at Canadian Forces Health Services HQ in Ottawa. On completion of French language training, she was promoted to Colonel and appointed Director Health Services Operations July 2005, during which time she planned and executed the stand-up of the NATO Canadian led hospital in Kandahar, chaired the Multinational Mil Med Steering Group, and managed overall medical support to all Canadian Forces members serving in international missions, including Afghanistan.
In August 2007, she moved to Edmonton and was appointed 1 Health Services Group Commander, overseeing all medical units from Thunder Bay west to Comox. She retired from the Canadian Forces October 2009 after 34 years of combined regular and reserve service.
Col Haberstock is a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia and the Canadian Society of Physician Executives. She is married to Rod, an EMT, and has two children, Erica (32) and Kevin (30) Fensom, and one granddaughter, Sophia. She is an accomplished pianist, a fair skier, and a very poor golfer.