Northern Health puts the call out for Physicians to come to Prince Rupert

Northern Health is looking for a few good practitioners, currently recruiting physicians for the North Coast, with two positions recently posted to the Health providers website.

At the moment, they are seeking a Family Practitioner/General Practitioner-Locum for the Community and well as someone for Internal Medicine (General).

Details of the positions available and some of the background that  Northern Health provides on the community is available for the would be medical professionals from the Recruitment and Careers page on the  Northern Health website.

It's a fairly competitive business the recruitment of medical professionals for the various service delivery areas of Northern Health's vast territory, the isolation of some of the towns and the competition from other parts of the province and other provinces for that matter, makes for a challenging task for Northern Health's recruitment team.

In recent years, Northern Health has found a fair amount of success in bringing physicians and specialists from South Africa to fill the variety of openings across the region, however recent changes to  reciprocity protocols between the two countries have sent Northern Health off to search other options (and other parts of the world) for future General Practitioner positions.

The Prince George Citizen examined that side of the recruitment process in December, reviewing the changes to the agreement between Canada and South Africa that had come into effect earlier in the year.

Changes which for the most part meant that the credentials of General Practitioners would no longer be automatically recognized by local licensing boards, after the harmonization of provincial requirements.

With that particular line of applicants drying up, Northern Health is changing its focus for applicants. As the Citizen relays in their story, the new target recruitment area for would be Northern BC doctors will be the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States.

Northern Health has in the past had troubles at times filling positions across the region, owing mainly to the nature of the competition for medical professionals and the rural nature of the service delivery areas.

Challenges that at times have led to doctor shortages in many communities across the region.

It will be interesting to track how much success they have going into 2013, now that they have had to change focus on where they can attract professionals from.