In an address to a group of medical students touring southeast Saskatchewan, the CEO of Sun Country Health Region described its recruitment of physicians as "having come a long way."
In an effort to promote the allure of small towns to future doctors, Sun Country Health Region organized a trip for over 30 medical students from the University of Saskatchewan to visit medical facilities in the southeast. On Sept. 28 the students began their tour with a breakfast held at Prairie Place in Arcola where the Region's CEO Marga Cugnet spoke about the offerings of small town communities and explained how recruitment of physicians has changed. She stressed that in the past many of the positives were never really highlighted. And she indicated that southeast Saskatchewan now has a growing population and it's a group of communities that work together to achieve what needs to be done in local areas.
"I'm proud of the region and working with our local communities, we're the first region to actually put together a practitioner command post" she said.
In addition to Cugnet there were several other speakers, including Dr. Lise Morin, a physician at the Arcola Health Centre, who worked with Sun Country to make the tour possible. But it was local farmer, Darren Ippolito that somehow struck a chord with the students. He said there are several things a small town can offer, that big cities can't. He listed family, security and wealth as things many people strive for and can attain in rural areas. He explained the reason why many people return to small towns isn't because of the amenities you do or don't have but rather, its people. Something he said can be lost and he drew on some examples to illustrate his point.
"You lose the culture of what it means to be a family," he said.
"When you look at city designs, how their designing Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, all these cities have one thing in common - they're going away from sleek designs and moving to greener community designs, my question is, what took them so long," he said.
After the breakfast the students were split in two groups and began their tour. They went to the towns of Arcola and Carlyle, where they visited the Arcola Family Health Centre, the Moose Mountain Lodge in Carlyle as well as a tour of both communities.
At each location a host was on hand to provide Q and A sessions and the students were able to speak with patients and staff and were given details of the day to day operation of the facility. Dr. Cathy Meyer, a physician at the Carlyle Medical Clinic was a host at the Carlyle Moose Mountain Lodge. She compared the exposure students now have, to when she was in medical school. She explained that she wasn't exposed to programs that sensitized students about working in rural locations. Her idea at the time was that a physician practicing in such areas would just simply be in his office during the day and went home in the evening. She emphasized that rural areas offer a lot more than what many may think. And attested to Carlyle's loving and family oriented nature and admitted she would love other physicians to have the same experience and commended Sun Country's initiative.
"I thought this was a great idea and I'm very grateful to Dr. Morin for having organized this - for me, also it was good to be able to speak and tell people what it's like because if you're in a small community you can easily become inadvertently kind of lost," she said.
"You do have a life here and the community has been exceptional towards me and I really think that a medical student would do well coming here."
Member of Carlyle's town council, Darcy Moore, was present at the tour and believed the visit gave the students a better idea of what to expect of small towns.
"I think this is a good opportunity for us, and for them to see southeast Saskatchewan - get a bird's eye view and maybe in the future they'll want to put down roots and call home, so I think this is a very good idea by Sun Country and this might help out rural communities like us."
