Huron Expositor, 2007-07-04, Page 3The Huron Expositor • July 4, 2007 Page 3
News
Communities looking for doctors get `message of hope'
Susan Ilundertinark
There is a light at the end of
the tunnel for rural communi-
ties looking for family doctors.
Dr. Tom Lacroix gave "an
underlying message of hope" at
a recent day -long workshop in
Huron County bringing medical
recruitment and retention com-
mittees together from Seaforth,
Clinton, Goderich, Wingham
and Exeter.
"The focus of the whole thing
was to give a base knowledge of
recruitment issues. We have to
make sure we're ready to recruit
those who are coming out of
school and know how those indi-
viduals make their decisions,"
says Healthkick manager Laura
Overholt , who organized the
workshop.
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Dr. Lacroix, assistant dean of
the South Western Ontario
Medical Education Network
(SWOMEN) out of the
University of Western Ontario,
spoke about how much better off
Canada is than the U.S. in pro-
ducing family doctors.
"We're not falling into the
same traps of producing super
sub -specialists by allowing the
market to determine where peo-
ple are needed. In Canada, we
do a lot more planning what the
population needs and the uni-
versities control the residen-
cies," he says.
Lacroix says there has been a
"massive increase" in medical
student enrolment in Canada
since 2002, giving the example
that UWO's medical school is
now 150 per cent bigger than
before.
He adds that admissions crite-
ria is now allowing 40 per cent
of the class to be from
Southwestern Ontario, opposed
to 15 percent in 2004.
"We have more local kids
enrolled in our schools and in
2006, UWO won an award for
producing the largest number of
rural family doctors who ended
up in practice," he says.
LaCroix says Canadian med-
ical schools are starting to fig-
ure out how to do a better job
producing family doctors.
"We're doing quite well. We're
focussing on looking at when
people decide to do family medi-
cine," he says, adding that high
school and second year of med-
ical school are
pivotal times
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when decisions are made about
pursuing family medicine as a
career. "
LaCroix praised the MedQuest
program and Healthkick Huron
for providing high school stu-
dents the opportunity to get a
closer look at medical careers.
"At the end of the week of
MedQuest, our students express
a higher interest in returning to
smaller communities," he says.
"I think you're taking the right
steps in Huron."
As SWOMEN celebrates its
10th anniversary this year,
LaCroix says the organization
has already had a lot of success
stories regarding promoting
See RURAL, Page 9
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