Dr Ruth Roffmann 1917-2006

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 48, No. 9, November 2006, Page 466 Obituaries

Dr Roffmann was born in Germany on 6 April 1917. She earned her medical degree and began her internship on the front lines during the Second World War.

In 1952, Dr Roffmann and her sister (my mother) immigrated to Canada, settling in Vancouver and Surrey. While on holiday in 1960, Ruth met and fell in love with the head wrangler at a dude ranch. She would go on to marry Jake Reinertson in 1963 and move her practice to the small village of 100 Mile House.

Ruth had a huge learning curve to overcome upon becoming the village doctor in a very rural setting in the middle of cattle country, living on a ranch, and learning about ranching.

Dr Roffmann was loved and respected by her patients for her sense of humor, compassion, and understanding. These attributes did not fade away when a patient came to see her for nonmedical advice.

She had a special relationship with the Aboriginal people of the area, admiring them for their deep commitment to family and to each other.

At the age of 65, Dr Roffmann slowed down a little, working only part-time.

At the age of 70, she retired and joined Jake with full-time ranching.

In 1992, Jake died and the light went out of my aunt’s eyes as she bided her time here on earth, waiting to be with Jake again.

On 14 July 2006, my aunt and uncle were reunited for the last time.

—Jorunn Ivarsdatter
North Vancouver

Jorunn Ivarsdatter,. Dr Ruth Roffmann 1917-2006. BCMJ, Vol. 48, No. 9, November, 2006, Page(s) 466 - Obituaries.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply