The chief of staff at Bluewater Health (BWH) is hoping to soon train more medical residents for a longer period of time, in order to address an impending "tsunami" when current physicians retire for good.
Chief of Staff Dr. Mike Haddad recently hosted Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry Dean Dr. John Yoo, as well as other staff from Western University.
A few concepts were discussed during the visit such as longer training periods at BWH, and increasing the number of medical residents to do rotations in various specialties.
Haddad said the hospital system would also like to build on its family medicine residency program at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital in Petrolia by replicating the model in Sarnia.
"We've had many students and residents who come here who never even knew about Sarnia or Lambton in general, and they realize how wonderful the community is and they come back to work here," said Haddad. "Many of the new family doctors we have here either have links to the community or have trained here. Many of the family doctors in Petrolia, for example, trained in Petrolia."
BWH sees approximately 50 medical learners per year.
The goal of attracting more medical residents to the area is part of a greater strategy to "replenish" the number of area physicians over the next three to five years.
Haddad said many current medical providers are beyond retirement age and have returned to the sector to help as needed.
"We're trying to be ahead of the curve here and be more proactive as opposed to being reactive," said Haddad. "Some of them (physicians) have come back from retirement to help fill in the gaps in primary care so there is a bit of a tsunami coming that we have to be prepared for."
Some gaps are already being noticed. Haddad said at times, residents will attend the emergency department for primary care services because of difficulty accessing a primary care provider.
Based on data from Blue Coast Primary Care Recruitment and Retention, 43 per cent of Sarnia-Lambton family physicians are over the age of 60, and 10 family physicians are over the age of 70.
Blue Coast's recruitment taskforce is aware of three upcoming retirements between July 2023 and early 2024, and seven additional retirements are expected in the next two to three years. The same type of data could not be pulled for BWH's emergency medicine physicians.
In order to have more medical learners train at BWH for longer periods of time, there are a few hoops to jump through.
"The ministry has approved extra training positions for residency in the province and we're hoping to tap into that," said Haddad. "It's not enough to have funding, you need to have people to educate the new generation. So we need to have enough physicians locally who are willing to be presenters and teach the new generation. We do have many, it's just that we need to coordinate that because there are different specialties and different rotations."
Another factor involves housing. Haddad said at times, medical students and learners who come to Sarnia-Lambton, have had difficulty finding a suitable place to live.
A shortage of specialists and physicians is a concern in other nearby regions as well.