Dr. Edgar McCanless, a longtime pediatrician and transplant to Lake Charles, was named Family & Youth’s 2015 Humanitarian of the Year in June.

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I appreciate this because I’ve enjoyed working with Family &amp; Youth,” McCanless said. “I think we’re very fortunate to have them here. They do a terrific job.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">McCanless, born in Canton, Ga., graduated from high school in 1942 and attended Duke University. He finished in three years and then attended the University of Pennsylvania to get his medical degree.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He had to have a rotating internship, McCanless said, and he worked at a general hospital in Pennsylvania run by German nuns.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He then decided to pursue a pediatric medicine residency program.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He said he spent two months at the New Orleans Charity Hospital helping children who had infectious diseases like meningitis and whooping cough, “stuff you never see anymore.” He described the hospital as overflowing with patients.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“It was quite an eye-opener for me,” McCanlesss said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He then traveled to New York City, where he was in residency for six months at a contagious disease hospital: Willard Parker Hospital. When he finished his residency, McCanless said his interests drew him to look at the psychological aspects of disease.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He went to Pittsburgh to a program that was part of the psychiatric hospital set up by Benjamin Spock. He credits his time here for helping him later in his career.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Korean War started, and McCanless was subject this time to the draft. During World War II he was labeled as 4F due to orthopedic issues. This time around, he chose the Air Force and went to Barksdale in Shreveport.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He was in charge of both the inpatient and outpatient care at the pediatric hospital. While there he inoculated children with the first polio vaccine.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“That got me a good taste of what practice would be like,” McCanless said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">During that time, though, he met his wife, Mary, and in 1956 they got married. In 1957, the McCanlesses moved to Lake Charles and he joined the Lake Charles Medical and Surgical Clinic, which later became Lake Charles Memorial Hospital.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He stayed there until 1981 before working at the Children’s Clinic and caring for a large number of foster children, as well as the abused and neglected. He said he even took special courses to help with the cases for the children.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He worked closely with child protection officials and then with Family &amp; Youth when it started in the area in 1998. Family &amp; Youth asked him to help set up the Child Protection Unit, which he did, he said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">McCanless had routine meetings with counselors and workers for the children until his retirement in 2014 at age 89.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I thought it’s about time to quit,” McCanless said. “It’s been very rewarding and satisfying to do this over the years. I see (patients) in Kroger’s all the time.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">When Head Start began in the 1960s in Lake Charles, he and other pediatric doctors helped care for the underprivileged and undernourished children in the program.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He said most of those children had never truly had a doctor’s checkup and many of them had parasites and dental decay.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Talking about what it was like to be a doctor during that time, McCanless said doctors would start IVs on their own and be on call all hours through the night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“We had more seriously sick children those years before we had all the vaccines we have now,” McCanless said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Over the years, McCanless has been a part of the Rotary Club, and he supports the Duke Chapel and the Duke Children’s Hospital. He is a member of the Louisiana State Medical Society, the Calcasieu Parish Medical Society, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Louisiana chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">McCanless received the Pinnacle Light of Hope Award in 2000 from Family &amp; Youth and the Charles Downing Award from the Southwest Louisiana Law Center in 2015.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Now that he is retired, he said he enjoys going to the theater and symphony concerts. He said he often goes to the local movie theater to watch the Metropolitan Opera on the big screen.</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Shannon Roberts on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ShannonAmPress"><span class="s1">twitter.com/ShannonAmPress</span></a>

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</span><p>Devin Dronett/American Press</p>