London calling
Health authority looking for doctors in the U.K.
The search for doctors to fill drastic shortages in Cape Breton and other parts of the province is taking the Nova Scotia Health Authority overseas for the first time.
The health authority — along with Nova Scotia Immigration staff and representatives from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia — will attend a medical recruitment fair in London, England, this week.
Dr. Lynne Harrigan, the health authority’s vicepresident of medicine and integrated
Harrigan health, said bringing officials from the immigration department and the college should make it easier to attract family physicians and specialists to Nova Scotia.
She said the college recently changed its rules to family practitioners who’ve been trained in the U.K. and with approximately five years of experience to forgo the formal licensing examinations as long as they’re have their Canadian Fellowship of Family Practice recognition. As well, the province is going to put any interested candidates in its nominee program to fasttrack their entry into the country.
“Previously people had to go through a series of three, possibly four, exams before they could come to Canada at a great cost to them.
This has been waived, so this is tremendous for us,” she said on Wednesday while waiting for a flight to England to attend the two-day fair, which begins Friday. “And also Nova Scotia Immigration has put everybody on the nominee program, which means if we have someone who’s interested and they want to come right away, they can come and work while they’re working on getting landed immigrant status, so that’s fantastic. So if we have people interested they could literally start within a month of our visit with them.”
Harrigan said they are hoping to recruit a minimum of 10 doctors at the BMJ Careers Fair, which runs Friday and Saturday and promises access to more than 1,800 doctors and specialists.
Harrigan said she didn’t immediately have access to the specific number of doctor vacancies in Cape Breton on Wednesday. However, in August the health authority said 16 new doctors were heading to Cape Breton, including four family physicians and 12 specialists, although it has since been reported that some of those doctors had changed their minds and others have left the island. At that time there were still another nine family doctors needed in Cape Breton, as well as about a dozen more specialists such as psychiatrists and geriatricians.
“We’re going with the attitude of recruiting doctors for the province, period. Cape Breton is an area of need as are many other parts of the province, so we will be sort of showcasing our entire province to these physicians. It’s a specialist and a family doctor fair, so there will be a lot of specialists there. From a specialist perspective we’re particularly looking for psychiatrists for Cape Breton but also for the northern zone. We’re looking for geriatricians for Cape Breton, radiologists for Yarmouth — so we have a list of all the positions that we need across the province and anyone who has an interest in that specialty, we’ll be promoting that area of the province. For family practice we have needs right across the province, so we’ll be showcasing and promoting all of those.”
Harrigan said while this is the first international recruitment effort targeting family doctors and specialists, the health authority did travel to Scotland earlier this year to attend a psychiatry fair. In addition to its ongoing relationship with Dalhousie Medical School, they will also be attending the Family Medicine Forum in Quebec City next month, which is the largest gathering of family physicians in Canada. They also have outreach programs at medical school campuses throughout Ontario, as well as Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“We’re all over Eastern Canada, we’re extending into Ontario now. We haven’t gone West yet but that is also possibility,” she said. “It’s constant. We’re always somewhere.”