Approach to attract doctors a hopeful bet

When Peterborough city council asked for a new approach to finding doctors four months ago, we noted that after years of indifferent results, doctor recruitment was feeling like a Hail Mary lob — more wishful thinking than strategic planning.

That approach was revealed this week and won unanimous council support, but it still seems Hail Mary-ish.

The new elements of what is being called a made-in-Peterborough strategy are not entirely new, and not well defined.

One is what a city staff report recommending the new approach calls “Whole of Village” — a play on the “it takes a village to raise a child” trope.

The other is reliance on a new Physician Think Tank that is counted on to generate insights not considered in the past.

And while one councillor said it was encouraging that Peterborough will not just be throwing money at the problem, a lot of money is involved: $580,000 over the next two years.

If it works, the money will be well spent.

Estimates of how many city residents are without a family doctor range from 15,000 to 20,000.

They don’t have access to simple care for an injury or illness, or first-stage review of any problem that might turn out to be lifethreatening.

It’s understandable municipal government officials and politicians want to help solve the problem. But two decades of trying hasn’t shown results.

In November, council rejected one more attempt at hiring a doctor recruiter, with the pot sweetened to $226,000 annually to achieve better results.

That “ask” came from Peterborough and Kawarthas Economic Development, the joint city-county funded agency that works to being jobs and investment here.

Council said no, and asked city staff to come up with a new answer.

The Whole of Village model is described as bringing different segments of the community into a single campaign. Details are to be developed over the next six months, but the report mentions contacting current medical students who grew up here and recruiting the business community to provide services (presumably things like legal, accounting, and real estate work) for doctors setting up new practices.

That’s all a bit nebulous, and not entirely new. The work would be overseen by not a doctor recruiter but a “physician recruitment co-ordinator” who would work out of city hall on a two-year contract. The plan does not detail a salary or required skills for the position.

The co-ordinator would consult with a new Physician Think Tank to develop an incentive package. No detail on the think tank is provided, but one councillor praised it as a physician-only group of local doctors.

Their advice might well help, but it won’t be new. Doctors have always had a very large stake in recruitment. As they prepare to retire they need to find replacements to service their patients, and to recoup the investment they have in their offices and equipment.

Medical clinics are in the same position. They are businesses, doctors are partners in the business, and without new blood they can fail.

At least one large local clinic has its own doctor recruitment committee. Others likely do as well.

The plan is that one individual, with support from city hall, can harness and expand on all the work already being done to bring doctors here — and that a new, broader, “whole village” push will emerge and be successful.

It might, but there are not enough doctors out there to fill every city’s need. This seems more like a hopeful bet against long odds than a strategic move that will pay off.

It’s understandable municipal government officials and politicians want to help solve the problem. But two decades of trying hasn’t shown results