The Editor:
It was with interest I read the Estevan Mercury's article on physician recruitment in Estevan.
I applaud the health region's efforts to bring needed physicians to Estevan. However, may I suggest one obvious source of future physicians for Estevan and elsewhere in Saskatchewan? That source is Saskatchewan's own resident physicians, a group often overlooked as regions and the province focus much of their effort at international recruitment.
These residents are medical doctors, already working long hours in the province, towards their own independent licence. They are often the first physician you see if you are transferred to hospital in Regina or Saskatoon. Many residents are from Saskatchewan and some like me have lived here our entire lives and are statistically more likely to stay here for the long term.
Unfortunately, as recently as June 2011, less than 40 per cent of graduating residents chose to stay in Saskatchewan. Of those who chose to stay, 82 per cent found their position on their own, with only six per cent of local graduates, finding employment through health region recruitment and six per cent through a recruitment agency. The most promising statistic for retention, is that 50 per cent of residents not planning to stay in Saskatchewan were undecided if they would come back.
While I applaud Sun Country Health Region's efforts to recruit needed physicians, with the Mercury stating "the physician population is at about 50 per cent of what it should be" perhaps Sun Country, and other health regions in Saskatchewan, need look no further than recruiting locally trained resident physicians.
Convince the "undecided" residents to stay here at home. Perhaps by realizing that the best chance to find a lifelong Saskatchewan physician is to hire a lifelong Saskatchewan trained doctor, Sun Country and other health regions can improve on the 82 per cent of new Saskatchewan born and bred doctors who had to find work in the province on their own.
Nicholas Peti, MD
Resident Physician at Royal University Hospital Saskatoon
PAIRS President
Saskatoon, Sask.
