Remembering Dr. Dagly
You had fans in places you never imagined. You Sir, were an inspiration.
Remembering Dr. Darren Markland — “Dr. Dagly”
Dr. Darren Markland was an inspiration to me. We were not close friends; I never hung out with him, never sat across from him at a backyard barbecue. But like so many in Edmonton and beyond, I felt his presence in my life every single day.
He was a physician, a nephrologist at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. But to the wider public, he was also Dr. Dagly, a voice on Twitter/X that carried weight, clarity, and compassion during some of our darkest days. Darren was the kind of doctor who didn’t stay cloistered behind hospital doors—he invited us into the realities of care, the challenges of a strained system, and the small victories of healing.
I first came to know him through my work as a journalist. During COVID, when many were hesitant or outright unwilling to speak about what was really going on inside our hospitals, Darren did. He took my calls. He spoke with me and with my colleague Raffy about the pressures facing ICUs, the exhaustion of staff, the heartbreak of families torn apart by illness. He didn’t sugarcoat. But neither did he despair. He found a way to tell the truth with humanity, balancing urgency with hope.
That was his gift: honesty, without cruelty. Courage, without bravado.
I also knew him through the stories of others. My friend Dick Hanson, in the final chapter of his life, was cared for by Dr. Markland. Over countless lunches, Dick would speak of him—how kind he was, how attentive, how much it meant to have a doctor who didn’t just manage symptoms but saw the person. Those stories stuck with me. When someone in their last days speaks not of pain, but of gratitude for the person by their side, that tells you everything you need to know about a doctor’s character.
But Darren wasn’t defined solely by medicine or the pandemic. He lived fully, on his own terms. He bicycled to work through Edmonton’s streets, canoed from his west-end home, found joy in movement and in nature. He took us along to his cabin through photos and stories, shared his love of cooking with snapshots of meals that celebrated not just food, but the ritual of gathering and enjoying life. These glimpses mattered. They showed that even in the intensity of his work, he cultivated joy, and invited the rest of us to do the same.
In that way, he was more than a doctor. He was a community leader—not because he sought the role, but because he lived it. He modelled what it meant to care for people, to fight for public health, to be brave enough to tell the truth, and to embrace the pleasures of ordinary life.
I think that’s why so many of us felt close to him, even if we had never shared a meal or shaken his hand. He let us in. He let us see him not only as a physician, but as a person.
On Monday afternoon, I learned that Darren had died in a cycling accident near Nordegg, Alberta. It stopped me cold. He loved cycling. He loved the freedom of being on the road, the quiet of moving through the landscape under his own power. There is a small, aching comfort in knowing he died doing what he loved. But the loss is immense.
We’ve lost a doctor. We’ve lost an advocate. We’ve lost a man who inspired not by grand speeches, but by steady presence. And I think we’ve also lost a reminder—a reminder of how one life, lived authentically and with compassion, can lift up an entire community.
It’s tempting, when someone dies too soon, to focus on the hole left behind. And it is a big one. His patients will miss him. His colleagues will miss him. His family and friends will carry a grief beyond what words can touch. For those of us who only knew him through his work, his voice, his social media feed, his absence is felt too.
But maybe the better way to honour Darren is to remember the fullness of what he gave us. He showed us that medicine is not only about diagnoses and treatments, but about courage and care. He showed us that speaking truth in hard times is an act of love for community. He showed us that life should be savoured—that a paddle on the water, a ride on the bike, a meal at the cabin, are just as essential to health as any prescription.
He didn’t live as though he were trying to inspire anyone. He simply did life on his own terms. And in that authenticity, he inspired us all.
Thank you, Dr. Dagly. You were like a shooting star. For all those who saw you, an inspiration. May your light and spirit live on.
I never met him but loved his posts on Twitter and then Bluesky. You have described his impact beautifully. Thank you. 🙏
Thank you so much for writing this. It's hard to take in. He was a streak of light on my twitter --a man unafraid of bad news with no loss of integrity, a compassionate man who loved to share and knew the way to joy. I live in Calgary and would have loved to attend one of his early morning coffees --that alone speaks volumes, story upon story, of what it means to share in community. Thank you also for the photo you shared, the caring man we felt even if we didn't meet him in person. I can't imagine the pain in his family, and the loss for his unit. My heart feels so sad for him too. I think he had more places he wanted to go, but he appeared to live holding nothing back. My last post of his reads "ready for winter." It's up to us now, to allow his influence to keep making a difference. I'm probably like so many others right now - may it not be so!!