Is There A Doctor In The House?

The Windsor Star reported that "A new study says that Chatham-Kent and Essex County, including Windsor, have the lowest and third-lowest population of family doctors in Ontario respectively, replacing the north as the most underserviced region."

A new medial school opened in Northern Ontario that is supposed to help with the doctor shortage. It won’t. Windsor has a new satellite medical school that is supposed to help with the doctor shortage. It won’t. Ontario has never produced enough doctors. A rep from The College of Physicians and Surgeons told me that we have always relied on foreign trained doctors to meet our deficiency. Look at the numbers for a reality check.

• "Ontario doctors praised the opening of [The Northern Ontario School of Medicine] on Tuesday. They said it's a key step to addressing the shortage of physicians in the province…. Ontario is short almost 2,200 physicians, leaving almost 1.2 million patients without access to a doctor…. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty encouraged the first 56 students in the school to stay in northern Ontario after they graduate… The school will produce its first graduates in 2009." CBC News report
  
  "An additional 104 spots are to be created at existing facilities over the next four years. Queen's Park has also boosted the number of physician residency positions and slots for international medical school graduates." Windsor Star Editorial

How can a shortage of several thousand doctors with additional complications due to changes in lifestyle---more women doctors and aging male family practitioners who tend to work fewer hours—be met by the few new doctors being turned out. That number would hardly dent the number of retiring doctors in our area considering the first doctors in the northern school will not graduate until 2009!

I know that there is a movement in our area to create a new medical school in Windsor. While commendable, realistically, the chances of it actually being built in the near-term are remote notwithstanding the valiant efforts of the community and our political representatives.

In my mind, a better alternative is to encourage foreign trained doctors to move here and to do so NOW! We would not be depriving countries of their doctors since there actually are certain countries that have a surplus of well-trained doctors who could be admitted here quickly.

Certainly, some training would be necessary and required to ensure that their standards met ours and to ensure that they are acclimatized to the Canadian system. That’s where our local schools would come in. We would design a program so that there would be no cost to taxpayers. My experience is that these doctors would be prepared to pay the full tuition costs of such a program and would be prepared to work in under-serviced areas to solve our shortage problem.

We can justify such a new program in Windsor for foreign trained doctors. Moreover, we can view it as an interim step between the satellite school and the day that we get a full-fledged medical school. We would have created a built-in specialty before the medical school was even constructed.

Our University and Community College would play a vital role as I see it. The University of Windsor would not have a "stand-alone" medical school right away but rather would have the school where every foreign trained doctor would be assessed and upgraded, if needed, so that he/she could practise in Ontario. St. Clair College would have the responsibility to ensure that the doctor and his/her family become accustomed to the Canadian way of life and fit in to the community as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

The big PLUS for this program is that we turn out doctors almost immediately and at a much lower cost than waiting for a totally new doctor to go through school and graduate. I would expect that many graduates of the school would choose to stay in our area.

Even if there is a concern about admitting them as "doctors," they could be admitted as physician assistants or "apprentices," working to help out the doctor and reduce the pressure due to high caseloads. It works this way in other professions; why not medicine. Frankly, and to be cynical, it also is a way of getting doctors here and paying them less than a doctor's income so that the Ministry of Health can save taxpayer money too.

The foreign trained doctors are NOT doing this for the money. Most I have spoken with want to bring their family to North America to live, for the better life that they believe that we can offer to their children.

If what I am saying makes sense, then we need to start. Our City and County Councils need to take the lead. We need the dedicated members of our area who helped us to get the satellite school to take action for this next step. I drafted a Resolution that I hope we can consider as our Mission Statement for this project. All it takes now is for us to demand that our local politicians get moving and get this process started!

WHEREAS the health and well being of the residents of Windsor and Essex County are of prime importance; and

WHEREAS more than 50,000 residents of the Region are now faced with a situation where they have no ready access to a doctor because of an acute shortage of doctors in the area; and

WHEREAS the Region has a need for more than 250 family physicians and specialists now and over 175 doctors are 50 years of age or older; and

WHEREAS communities in the Region are having difficulties recruiting and retaining doctors and are facing a situation where the aging of doctors and lifestyle changes will result in reduced case-loads and a worsening of the problem; and

WHEREAS communities in order to attract new doctors may have to engage in wasteful, competitive activities; and

WHEREAS the University of Windsor will be setting up a satellite campus as part of the Medical School of the University of Western Ontario; and

WHEREAS the doctor shortage crisis can only be resolved in the short term by recruiting and encouraging foreign trained doctors to come to and remain in the Region

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Windsor City Council

1. declare that the City of Windsor is in a medical state of emergency respecting the shortage of doctors in the area including Family Practitioners and specialists in a number of medical specialties
2. work together with all of the communities in the Region co-operatively on a co-ordinated recruitment strategy for repatriating Canadian doctors who work out of Canada, foreign trained doctors who already live in Canada and for IMGs
3. urge the Government of Ontario and the Minister of Health and Long Term Care to take immediate action to deal with the doctor shortage crisis by setting up a "pilot" program in the Region to be known as the Executive Medical Preparation Program for recruited doctors which would consist of a self-funded, intensive training program to ensure that the doctors meet Ontario standards
4. work with the Federal government to develop a "fast track" immigration process, which does not compromise national security, or CMA credentials and competency standards.
5. request the University of Windsor medical school to develop the expertise for the Province in developing the Executive Medical Preparation Program to train the recruited doctors to Ontario standards
6. request St. Clair College to provide cultural training to assist the recruited doctors and their families to become acclimatized to the culture of Ontario and its healthcare environment
7. request the Essex County Medical Society and the Essex Kent Lambton District Health Council to provide practical experience on aspects of the medical services and understanding the complexities of the health system, and
8. require that the recruited doctors commit to practice in the Region for a period of not less than 5 years