Efforts continue to find new doctors here

As part of the ongoing efforts to recruit new doctors to practise in Fort Frances, the local Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee will be conducting its annual tour of eastern Ontario next month.
During the week of Sept. 21-26, clinic administrator Marlis Bruyere and committee member Maureen Gartshore will be stopping at medical schools in Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton, London, and Toronto to promote Fort Frances as a favourable place for new physicians to start their careers.
A major plus, said Bruyere, is the fact the Family Health Team model of health care delivery has been implemented at the local clinic. This has led to the hiring of two full-time nurse practitioners, a health systems navigator, and a registered nurse dedicated to chronic disease management and anti-coagulation therapy.
“Our physicians and our allied health care professionals work really, really well together, and that’s the kind of model students coming out of school are being trained for,” Bruyere noted.
“They’re being trained in this interdisciplinary, collaborative model where they work with nurse practitioners, where they work with chronic disease managers,” she added. “As physicians, that’s what they are being prepared for, and because we have set up this kind of model here, I think it will be quite appealing to them.”
Bruyere said the FHT model has been working well, and is very well-suited to the north.
“We are going to have physician shortages for a long time,” she warned. “Our physicians are so great because they are so willing to work with allied health care professionals, they so willing to work with nurse practitioners and, say, specialists who come in, maybe an asthma educator or diabetes educator.
“I think that’s a real advantage that the north has that [which] eastern and southern Ontario really hasn’t gotten into because they have better access to health care professionals,” Bruyere continued. “If [new graduates] are coming out and they like that kind of model, our physicians and our allied health professionals already work within that model.”
The obvious advantage to the FHT model is it lessens physicians’ considerable workloads.
“Take, for example, chronic disease patients. If you have a chronic disease, say diabetes, you need to see your physician quite frequently,” noted Bruyere. “But when there’s a physician shortage, it’s really hard to get to see them.
“So what happens now is the physicians can have the nurse practitioner or chronic disease manager do the follow-up.”
The nurse practitioner or chronic disease manager then will keep the doctor updated as to the patient’s health and if there is a problem, such as elevated blood sugar on a continued basis, the doctor will
arrange for an appointment to see the patient personally.
“Because they’re collaborating, doctors are kept aware of what the status of that patient is, but they don’t have to see them as frequently, freeing them up to attend to matters more urgent at the time,” explained Bruyere.
“We have a noticed a reduction in wait times for people to get in to see their physician. It’s helping.”
Another selling point is the fact the Fort Frances Community Clinic no longer is owned by the doctors themselves, but is a community-based, not-for-profit entity (officially known as the Fort Frances Community Clinic-Nelson Medical Professional Corp.)
This means new physicians who come here no longer will have to buy into the practice, and instead can concentrate on delivering health care and not have to deal with the additional pressures of running a business.
This is especially important for new physicians, who more than likely have graduated with student loans and are not in a position to have to financially invest in a joint practice.
Another part of Bruyere and Gartshore’s mission next month is promoting Fort Frances and the surrounding area as an enjoyable, safe place to live and raise a family.
“I think a really big factor is selling Fort Frances,” said Bruyere. “I think Fort Frances is a really great place. I’ve lived here all my life. The north is beautiful, and I think we need to sell that.
“You not only sell the practice, but you sell the community,” she stressed. “It’s beautiful here. We have the most beautiful spring, summer, and fall here. You can’t really sell the winter unless they’re cross-country skiers.”
Bruyere noted the recruitment committee also tries to find employment for spouses of any doctors who come here. “We have to look at the community as a whole, and offer that as a package, and I think we have a lot to offer,” she said.
As first reported in last week’s Times, the Town of Fort Frances offers an incentive package to help attract physicians here. As well, the local Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee (which includes partners from the Fort Frances Community Clinic, Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc., AbitibiBowater, and the Rainy River District School Board) has measures in place to help out new recruits, financially and otherwise (like job placements for spouses).
The local clinic and hospital currently have seven regular physicians, two surgeons, and one obstetrician/gynecologist. Bruyere said that, optimally, she would like to see four or five more come here, especially with three of the doctors being of retirement age.
She added Fort Frances has been very fortunate to have attracted physicians who enjoy practising here and have stayed on year after year.
“One of the things I’m excited about is the physicians we have here,” she said. “I think, as a community, we have to appreciate how hard these men and women work, and how they have stuck with us even though it’s been so much harder because we’re short.
“I see them after they’ve done on-call in the emergency department, and they’re exhausted, and yet they’re here the next day, seeing patients,” she noted. “We’re so short, that they’re well below the standard of what they should be covering for emergency. We’re about two physicians short for that—they’re one-in-five or -six, and the province says one-in-eight, so they’re working hard.”
One-in-six refers to being on-call for emergency one in every six days.
This burden sometimes has been alleviated thanks to locum doctors who’ve been brought in for one or two weeks at a time. Locum doctors are those without a formalized practice, sometimes semi-retired physicians, who travel around working on a temporary, contract basis.
“If the community could just see how hard [local physicians] work, and how they still give 100 percent to their patients and to the community,” said Bruyere. “I think that’s a big part of it, just to really appreciate what the ones who stayed are still doing for us.
“We’ve had some great physicians that have come and stayed. Most of them don’t have roots here initially, but have put down roots, and have children who live here now, and they’ve made this their home.
“I’d love other physicians to do that, as well.”
That said, even if physicians choose to come and stay for two years, that’s more doctors to deliver health care in the community experiencing a shortage.
“At least you have physicians,” smiled Bruyere. “But some of them will stick. I know they will. Small communities are always a fun place to raise kids.”
Aside from the physician recruitment tour, another avenue to attract newly-graduated doctors is having students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine come here for placements.
“Our biggest asset working with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine is that we have teaching physicians here who accept medical students from the Sudbury and Thunder Bay campuses,” noted Bruyere.
“What they’re finding is that medical students are often interested in going back, geographically, to where they’ve done some of their first placements,” she added. “Because they’re from the north to begin with, for the most part, I think we have a better chance once that school graduates.
“I think the first class is going into their residency this fall, so we may end up with some of those.”