Second-year family medicine resident Yannick Charette is proof that the city’s recruitment and retention efforts are working.
Charette, 30, will be setting up a practice in 2012 with two of his fellow Northern Ontario School of Medicine classmates. He said if it hadn’t been for NOSM, he wouldn’t be in medicine. Furthermore, the city’s physician recruitment strategy was a major factor in his decision to stay in the north. The city offers a return of service incentives, money that will allow Charette to focus on patient care instead of worrying about debt.
“We are so in debt by the time we graduate, we tend to make decisions based on incentives that will pay off our debts faster, but it’s not always the best decision,” Charette said.
Originally from Chelmsford, it made sense for him to accept the city’s offer.
“When you’re a resident, there are a lot of offers and opportunities coming in from right across northern Ontario,” Charette said. “These types of commitments make the choice easier, and for me, it helped cement the decision because my wife and I are both from the area and we have family here.”
The future physician said he and his partners will spend the first year after his residency working at the hospital and walk-in clinics, which will allow them to get a better feel for where they want to set up their practice.
“We’ve already been scouting some office space, but we expect to make a decision within the next year,” he said, and added there are likely two other residents who will be looking to set up shop in Sudbury next year.
NOSM had a major influence in bringing Charette back to northern Ontairo. He secured a master’s degree in clinical psychology in New Brunswick, with plans to become a psychologist, but he said he felt he needed to know more. The family medicine program offered through NOSM allowed him to work with patients right from the beginning, and to work with the body as well as the mind, he said.
“It has been an amazing experience, and I’ve been able to spend time in Moosonee and Sturgeon Falls,” he explained.
There are other residents in his program who signed on to work in other northern communities because of the incentives they were offered, Charette added.
Councillors have given the go-ahead for the city to inject another $400,000 into its physician recruitment strategy.
Council agreed to maintain its previous level of funding at the Sept. 21 policy meeting. The $400,000 in funding will enable the city to recruit eight new future family physicians, provide incentives to 10 new specialists recruited by Sudbury Regional Hospital and provide six new family physicians with the hospital privilege incentives. Physician recruitment co-ordinator Ryan Humeniuk said this level of funding will exceed the city’s projected rate of attrition, bringing it closer to its full complement of 115 family physicians. Currently, there are 97 physicians practising in the City of Greater Sudbury.
The Strategic Physician Recruitment and Retention program is designed as a year-round support network to assist medical students, medical residents, and practising physicians find suitable accommodations, employment opportunities for their spouses and school or activities for their children. It also provides financial incentives to encourage physicians to practise in Greater Sudbury. The incentives are handed out through one-time funding commitments.
Since the start of the recruitment program in 2008, the city has recruited 37 future family medicine physicians and provided incentives to 31 specialists recruited by Sudbury
Regional Hospital. In fact, 13 of those physicians opened practices in 2010, Humeniuk said.
Five physicians are expected to set up their practices this year, while another 11 will open in 2012, six in 2013 and two in 2015. Once all of the physicians start their respective practices, they will be able to take on a combined 50,000 patients who otherwise wouldn’t have had a family physician.
It is estimated that three to four family physicians per year will close their practices, which is why continuing to fund the strategy at its current level is vital, Humeniuk said, adding that 40 per cent of family physicians in the city have been practising for less than 10 years.
“That is a clear indication that our efforts are working,” Humeniuk said. “We have exceeded our expectations every year, and we’re just making things better all the time.”
The city is approaching its full complement of physicians, but there are still gaps in the continuity of care, according to a report prepared by Humeniuk, which indicates that 23 per cent of current family physicians have 30 or more years in practice.
“There is more to be done. In particular, matching new physicians with retiring physicians,” Humeniuk said. “We don’t want to sign just anyone. We want to look for the perfect candidate. We put a significant investment of time and energy into finding candidates, because it’s our hope they will stay beyond their required time.”
Council will now have to approve the funding during the budget process.
- Posted by Jenny Jelen
