Doctor recruitment and retention in Whitecourt could be getting a lift

During a recent Whitecourt Town Council meeting, Dr. Jane Ojedokun of Life Medical Clinic and Dr. Ryan Roszko of Associate Medical Clinic spoke with Council about doctor recruitment and retention efforts in Whitecourt. Invited by Mayor Tom Pickard to talk at the meeting, the pair spoke in favour of creating a committee to focus on the recruitment and retention of medical-related professionals. Dr. Jane is the Community Medical Director for Area 4 North Zone.

“Whitecourt is a really good community to come to. It’s very easy to attract doctors here. I’m sure you guys won’t believe that, but it’s one of the better northern communities to come to work in. I’ve been here for ten years now. It was the first place I came to in Canada, and I never left. I don’t think I’m planning to leave yet,” chuckled Dr. Ojedokun.

“We do have a good track record for doctors staying quite long. I would say about eight to ten years for most. Very few have come in, stayed just a couple of years, and left. Dr. Basson has been here for twenty years now.” Dr. Ojedokun said that when she and her family moved to Whitecourt, there was a big recruitment effort, with five recruited at the same time. “We went through this period where we had more than enough doctors in town, and I think the community relaxed with the recruitment (efforts). In the last, I would say, three or four years, we’ve had a few retirements, relocations back home, and this is actually a really difficult period for Alberta Health Services to recruit any formal health care professionals,” she explained.

The doctor losses locally, coupled with more challenging recruitment at the provincial level, made an already difficult situation worse. “All of a sudden, Whitecourt has been placed in the same category as other communities where we are all struggling for the few doctors coming to northern Alberta,” said Dr. Ojedokun.

As the Community Medical Director for the area, Dr. Ojedokun has a dual responsibility. “I recruit for Mayerthorpe, Whitecourt, Edson, Jasper, and Hinton. So, my responsibility is to introduce doctors to the areas, and if they decide to stay here, then the two clinics can talk to them and see which opportunities they would like to work in.” She said that Dr. Roszko and a couple of other doctors help her with interviews and bringing doctors to town.

However, the last few recruitments fell mainly on Dr. Ojedokun’s shoulders. “I was the interviewer, and then I was the lobbyer, making sure they chose us over other communities, and then I used to show them around the community. I love Whitecourt, and I sell it quite a bit. When I first came to town, my kids were quite fascinated with the Millar Centre, so that’s the first place I take the doctors when they come here. Then I take them to schools.”

She said the focus on recruitment has become too much and that a committee taking over the role would be best. Doctors who have questions about their where’s, hows, and whats about the community need a place to reach out to where they can get help and feel at home in doing so. “It’s a wonderful community, and I believe there’s a lot that we can show about this community to get the doctors to come in.”

For retention, Dr. Ojedokun said there needs to be more focus on keeping doctors here. “We do a good job of getting the doctors here, but I think we could do a better job retaining them. I think that if we had this formal recruitment team, made up of not just the doctors but people from the community, business leaders, and realtors too, that (would) help settle the doctors in a bit easier and also have an interest in staying in the community,” she explained.

Looking back at her family’s experience, Dr. Ojedokun said it was fantastic. Then-Mayor, Maryann Chichak picked up the family at their hotel. “She took the boys to the pool, took us to the schools, and did a fantastic job of getting us settled. We looked at Slave Lake on our way here and then came to Whitecourt, and we never left Whitecourt. I think the first impression usually matters a whole lot.”

Dr. Roszko said that his connection to the area made the decision to settle here easier. “I had ties to the area, and then I married a girl from here, so that helped,” he laughed. He said that making an impression on students and residents going through medical school before they get set on going somewhere specific is one way of boosting recruitment. “But that’s easier said than done. A lot of these physicians are internationally trained, so I think what Dr. Jane is speaking to is trying to get a little bit of help there, allow that transition to go smoother whether it’s actually when they are coming into town to open up shop or recruiting.”

The Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP) provides templates and ideas for creating a recruitment and Retention Committee. Town of Whitecourt Economic Development Officer Rhonda Hough said that the committee would pick up where Alberta Health Services ends. AHS would recruit, but once in the community, the committee would step up and make doctors and medical professionals feel welcome. The committee would help with the recruitment of various medical professionals.

On nurses, Dr. Ojedokun said retention was one of the biggest hurdles. Dr. Roszko, whose wife is a nurse, said that many nurses graduate and look to get jobs in the city but can’t. “They come out to the communities that are close enough to the city. They do their time, build up their experience, and get their resume better until they can apply for a job in the city hospital. Then they are gone.”

Deputy Mayor Paul Chauvet asked where the most significant bottleneck was in recruitment. He wondered if it was in obstetrics. “The obstetric piece is really hurting our community, but we can’t have a strong obstetrics team if we don’t have a strong OR program. We can’t have a strong OR program if we don’t have anesthetists. Right now, the biggest challenge in Alberta is getting anesthetists into the community. We only have one, and he’s probably close to retirement. We can’t seem to attract younger ones here because we don’t have a surgical program, and because we don’t have a strong surgical program, people who are training in obstetrics and c-sections don’t want to come here. That’s one piece we are working really hard to fix,” said Dr. Ojedokun.

Council voted unanimously to have Administration draft up terms of reference for the committee and bring a draft to November’s Policies and Priorities Committee meeting.