By Alan-Michael Steele [1]
BELLEVILLE – The Quinte West Physician Recruitment & Retention Committee announced it recruited its first new family doctor for the community.
[1]Dr. Ian Spreadbury is soon to become Quinte West’s newest family physician. Photo by Quinte West Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee
Dr. Ian Spreadbury plans to open a practice in Quinte West in 2021 after completing his residency. Dr. Spreadbury is currently in his fourth year as a medical student at McGill University.
He has already completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Pharmacology in addition to a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Bristol. He also has done postdoctoral research at both Oxford University and The University of Calgary, before spending nine years as a research associate at Queen’s University in Kingston. Currently, he is planning to practice family medicine.
Physician Recruitment and Retention Coordinator Paula Mason said there is a lack of doctors in Quinte West.
“We have a huge shortage of family physicians in Quinte West. So, we are basically just recruiting for family physician practices,” she said. “We’re hopeful in the next little while we’ll have more good news.”
Dr. Spreadbury is the first physician contracted by the Quinte West Physician Recruitment & Retention Committee [2]. The committee has worked for about a year to attract new physicians.
The Quinte West Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee is a joint initiative by the Quinte West council and the Trenton Memorial Hospital Foundation [3] to help attract new doctors to set up practices. It is currently seeking medical students who are looking for work after graduating and family doctors looking to relocate. The Quinte West council is also offering financial incentives to doctors willing to start practicing in the area.
Qualifying doctors can receive $100,000 over five years when they commit to practicing in Quinte West for five years. Mason said that while the incentive is there, she wants to encourage doctors to stay longer then just the five years, pointing out other benefits to living in Quinte West such as such as the abundance of outdoor sports, proximity to the waterfront, existing community of supporting doctors and proximity to the 401 making travel easy.
Mason said that the process for finding these doctors involves gathering names of potential new doctors from a number of sources. Their sources include university recruitment events or tips gained from members of the community. After identifying a lead, they follow up with them and try to build a relationship, show them the community and the opportunities that are available locally to entice them to stay.
“We’ve got a pipeline of about 38 strong leads, names we’ve collected over the last six months or so. And we work with these people on a regular basis, keeping in contact with them, inviting them to the community, wining and dining them, trying to get them to make a decision to come to Quinte West to practice,” Mason said.