Dr. Harjinderpal Singh, ED physician
WRHN Staff Spotlight
Dr. Harjinderpal Singh is an emergency department (ED) physician from Toronto who started working at Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) in November 2025.
Dr. Singh went to medical school in St. Louis, and did his residency training in Detroit. He was hired at WRHN after attending a physician recruitment weekend put on by the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce.
WRHN Foundation sat down with Dr. Singh to learn more about him, his career path, and his reasons for choosing Waterloo Region.
*The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to WRHN and why did you choose to work at this hospital?
When I left Canada for medical school in the U.S., the hope was always to return back home so I could start my life near my family and friends. But I also needed to find a hospital that could provide supervision for recent grads from a licensing perspective.
WRHN was one of those hospitals.
I reached out to a recruiter and he invited me to the physician recruitment weekend, where I got to see the area and both hospital sites (Midtown and Queen’s Blvd.), and I immediately liked the vibe I was getting. Everyone was straightforward, easy to talk to, and really personable, so that really attracted me here.
EDs can be tough places to work — what made you choose this specialty and what do you find most rewarding about your job?
I love working in the ED. In medical school, you learn so much about every different organ system and then, when you pick a specialty, a lot of what you’ve learned you don’t end up needing. So, I like that I get to use a broad range of medical knowledge.
There’s also something to be said for the satisfaction of immediate problem-solving. A lot of times with medical issues, it takes months before patients get a resolution – they might need to wait for a test or imaging, they might need to go on medication for a while, etc. – but with the nature of many ED cases, it’s sort of like: ‘Oh, this is the problem. I can fix this right now.’
I’ve had a lot of those moments and it’s very satisfying. So I think that’s what’s kept me in the ED and what drew me to it in the first place.
What have you found most enjoyable about working at WRHN?
There’s a real community vibe at this hospital and really great communication, and that translates to a very pleasant work environment. We do a lot of serious work but we’re also able to joke around with each other and have normal conversations and that makes a big difference on those really difficult shifts.
It’s that same type of culture that I picked up on from the physician recruitment weekend. The EDs at both Queen’s Blvd., and Midtown are a very close-knit group; there’s a strong relationship between physicians, nurses, and staff. And you don’t get that very often in emergency room settings.
The foundation recently launched a fundraising campaign aimed at bringing more family doctors and specialists to Waterloo Region. From your perspective, how would adding more family physicians impact our EDs?
EDs are getting busier every year and the truth is that a lot of cases coming through can be managed or even prevented with regular family physician visits and follow-ups. Some of the common issues we see are high blood pressure with no other symptoms, high blood sugar, pregnancy concerns – basically things that can be treated easily with a simple medication adjustment or a routine visit to your doctor’s office.
One of the biggest complaints I get from patients is that they either don’t have a family doctor or can’t get in to see their doctor quickly enough, and so they don’t know where else to go for medical care.
What’s the biggest takeaway you want a donor to remember if they’re thinking of donating to this campaign?
The biggest problem you see with the ED is wait times, right? A lot of these less urgent visits could be diverted by having more family doctors to see these patients. And as our community grows, this is going to be an even greater issue. If less of these non-urgent cases come to the ED, we’d be able to see and treat our emergency patients a lot more quickly.
Having more family physicians and more specialists at WRHN is extremely important – not just for me as someone who works here, but for the health and wellbeing of our entire community.
Need help finding a family doctor? Visit Health Care Connect to learn more and get started.
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