Recruiting more doctors to Fredericton crucial to community's health - committee

Published Friday March 26th, 2010
A3
By ADAM BOWIE
bowie.adam@dailygleaner.com

Many people are working to improve access to family physicians in the capital region.

Thousands of people in the Fredericton area rely on emergency rooms and walk-in clinics for their day-to-day medical needs.

The fact that many local family physicians are approaching retirement age has many health-care recruiters worried.

It means attracting new family physicians has become critical to the city's future health, something the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce has been working on for more than a year.

Local business leaders have been working with recruitment teams from the Horizon Health Network to welcome potential physician recruits to the area.

Chamber representatives may take doctors on a tour of the region, help them find suitable office space, assist their spouses with job searches and provide them with information about community services and resources.

Dr. Robert Hatheway, a member of the chamber's physician recruitment committee, said the team held a meeting this week to discuss strategies.

"The physician recruitment committee has been growing in numbers and in momentum over the past six months," he said.

"We were strategizing and working on how we can promote Fredericton and the region to future recruits for the area. We're looking at things like the collaborative-care clinic on Gibson Street and whether that's a model that is attractive for the future of patient care."

A collaborative-care clinic is a medical centre that features a number of physicians working side by side with nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and support staff.

If they choose to work in a specialized medical centre, they have fewer responsibilities and startup costs.

If they launch their own family practice, they're responsible for a variety of expenses right away, including the cost of buying or renting office space, purchasing equipment and furniture, hiring staff and other expenses.

Hatheway said the chamber is working to make both options seem possible for a physician who's interested in settling in Fredericton.

He said the committee is focusing on attracting family practitioners.

"We're not discriminating against any type of physician, but the reality is that it's the family doctor positions that we're maybe focusing the majority of our efforts on," he said.

"The direction that the committee is (pursuing) is going to be investigating how the collaborative-care clinics that have been established in the province now - what did they do right? what did they do that was not so right? - and try and put together a business plan that we can take to government to suggest the model that we think is best moving forward in at least the Fredericton area."