By Curtis Galbraith

Healthcare

Northern training for doctors one idea to solve specialist retention issues says AMA president

Nov 3, 2023 | 1:27 PM

The president of the Alberta Medical Association says one of the concerns he heard during a stop Wednesday in Grande Prairie was specialist retention.

Dr. Paul Parks says one solution to this could be training people locally.

“There is a lot of discussion about a northern university arm of medical school in the area. Physicians (here) that are doing clinical training of residents already would be the people tapped to do the training when a medical school came (here).”

“That was an example as well that they said they have had proposals in that would really help support and fund that clinical training.”

Dr. Parks says this idea of training physicians in Grande Prairie has been stalled for a while and the AMA could help get it going again by letting Alberta Health and AHS know that this is a “critical piece of workplace planning and evolution.”

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He says another big concern was access to a family doctor.

“I don’t have exact numbers, but repeatedly heard something in the neighbourhood of 40 per cent of that entire region does not have a family physician and don’t have access, so that causes lots of challenges.”

“(This stat) also causes very significant challenges around the emergency department and overcrowding that they face a lot.”

Dr. Parks says a lot of the time, people can only see a doctor through the emergency department.

He adds there was also a repeated theme about local control and decision-making.

The Medicine Hat-based emergency department doctor was in Grande Prairie Wednesday as part of a province-wide tour to meet with association members.

“Part of the reason for going around and learning these (local issues) is so that we can try to quickly work with government, work with AHS and figure out well, what are the solutions? What can we do to improve the environment so that we can retain physicians and we can keep going, that kind of thing.”

Before Grande Prairie, Dr. Parks stopped in Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary. He has future stops in Lethbridge, Fort McMurray and Medicine Hat.