As a city task force looks into ways to attract more doctors to St. Albert, a recent medical school graduate says the community could do more to attract people like him.
One way to attract more young doctors would be to make it easier for them to perform their various training rotations in St. Albert, said Dr. Daniel McKennitt, a 2010 medical school graduate who was born and raised in St. Albert.
While training to become a family doctor, McKennitt would have liked to do more of his placements in his hometown but found the opportunities were few and poorly advertised.
"When I become a family doctor I'm going to be sucked into the city right away because that's where I've done all my rotations. That's the only people who know me. That's who I know," said the 28-year-old, who still lives in St. Albert.
McKennitt said he did two rotations at the Sturgeon Community Hospital during his training but would have liked to spend time at local family practices.
"There's not a lot of doctors in St. Albert," he said. "The ones that are there, they're so busy they don't have time to teach."
Dr. Darryl LaBuick, an associate with Grandin Medical Clinic, said he and his partners regularly host doctors in training. In fact, it's one of their ongoing recruitment techniques.
"In our clinic, we've been actively recruiting for 30 years," LaBuick said. "We're always constantly looking and seeing if there's an opportunity for a good physician to join us."
Most family practices in St. Albert are small, and therefore lack the administrative support required to host doctors in training, said Dr. Fraser Brenneis, vice-dean of education in the University of Alberta's faculty of medicine and dentistry.
The faculty is looking to provide administrative support for small St. Albert clinics through the Royal Alexandra Hospital or the Northeast Community Health Centre, he said.
The faculty would welcome the opportunity to work with Alberta Health Services, St. Albert doctors and the community to increase the number of medical students who receive training in St. Albert, Brenneis said.
"Our enrolment is going up," he said. "We are looking for as many opportunities for clinical teaching as we can find."
Attraction
One way that St. Albert could attract more doctors is to keep closer tabs on local high school graduates who go on to complete medical school, McKennitt said.
He said Mayor Nolan Crouse has kept up with his progress but McKennitt knows three other St. Albert natives who have graduated from medical school.
"Nobody's really chasing after them or recruiting them or making them want to come back and work in St. Albert," he said.
Suburban locales aren't generally on the radar of colleagues from elsewhere, who mostly talk about practising in urban areas or rural areas that offer hefty incentive packages," he said.
"A lot of my colleagues are carrying debt loads of $150,000-plus … they want to pay off that debt as soon as possible," McKennitt said. "A lot of them will go and work in Northern Alberta or the Northwest Territories or Nunavut or wherever just to pay off those bills, just because the financial incentives really help."
He thinks an effective recruitment strategy for St. Albert could include financial incentives, a new medical complex like Spruce Grove has and more active recruiting by the city through advertising and attending conferences.
"Some financial incentives may help but I think just exposing people to St. Albert is what's most important," he said.
