Blanche River Health Takes Physician Recruitment Efforts Overseas
With the goal of recruiting Canadian medical students studying in the United Kingdom, Dr. Brian McPherson and Jennifer Forrest, Physician Recruitment and Medical Affairs Coordinator at Blanche River Health (BRH), recently travelled to medical conferences in Glasgow, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland.
The trip is part of recent efforts to use creative ways to overcome physician recruitment challenges in the area, including the recent creation of the Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee, a group of community organizations and leaders working in collaboration to increase the number of physicians caring for locals.
“The number one issue raised at our recent community engagement sessions was the doctor shortage,” said Jorge VanSlyke, President and CEO, Blanche River Health. “We owe it to our patients to leave no stone unturned in our physician recruitment efforts, including recruitment in other countries.”
On October 19 and 20, McPherson and Forrest represented BRH as exhibitors at the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Annual Conference and Exhibition, attended by general practitioners and medical students.
On October 21, the BRH team was in Dublin, where they joined more than 300 Canadian medical students studying in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, Ireland at the Canadian Society of Physician Recruitment’s repatriation expo.
“The conferences provided a great opportunity to showcase the communities we care for, and to discuss incentives we offer as part of our recruitment packages,” said Forrest. “It was a pleasure to connect with nearly 350 medical students and physicians, and I look forward to following-up with them as they decide where to practice.”
Blanche River Health is a 74-bed hospital corporation with two sites serving the North Eastern Ontario communities of Englehart (26 beds) and Kirkland Lake (48 beds) as well as residents in surrounding areas.
Photo caption:
Dr. Brian McPherson (l), a physician at Blanche River Health, and Jennifer Forrest, Physician Recruitment and Medical Affairs Coordinator at Blanche River Health, discuss practice opportunities at Blanche River Health with Mercedes Blair, a medical student from the University of Limerick in Ireland. The pair recently travelled to the United Kingdom to recruit physicians.