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Locums help fill medical gaps

The Creston Valley Health Working Group has been successful in recruiting new physicians to the area, but locums are also an importantn piece in a challenging puzzle
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What happens when your family physician takes a vacation or gets sick for more than a few days?

With careful planning and a lot of effort, Marilin States says that coverage is provided by locums, or temporary physician replacements, in order to effect continuing patient care.

With the Creston Valley Healthy Working Group (for which States works as our medical recruiter) working with local clinics, a half dozen locums have been brought to Creston in the past year. It is important, she says, that when locums are here, patients avail themselves of their services, and not wait until their own doctor returns. In this way, the locums, who could be considering Creston as a permanent practice in the future, get the best experience of a busy practice’s daily patient care.

“Locums are physicians who make themselves available for short-term coverage of a practice,” States said last week. “Some do this as ‘their practice’, working from town to town across BC. Others provide this service as a means to finding the best fit for where they want to establish a practice. Therefore, this is an important step in our recruitment efforts.”

States pointed out that the latest recruitment success, Dr. Kurt Jordan, who first provided locum coverage, accepted a permanent position at Summit Medical Clinic and is again accepting new patients (see ad on page 3).

Creston has also been participating in the Practice Ready Assessment program, in which physicians trained/working outside of Canada get first-hand experience in Canadian family medicine in British Columbia. After having gone through a lengthy evaluation process, applicants are assigned to a four-month initial assessment phase in an established practice following the completion of rigorous examinations. The candidate, once successful in those two phases, takes a three-year commitment to a community.

“We are now pleased to have been selected to host a physician chosen by a lengthy interview process and whose skills and abilities match those needed here, for a three-year period. The chosen candidate will complete his assessment phase in another community once he has passed his exams. Following that, he will be coming to Creston with his family next summer, for at least three years. Of course, if all goes well we hope they will make Creston their permanent home,” she said.

States credits the commitment of local physicians and others for Creston’s continued recruiting success.

“Creston Valley Health Working Group continues to make great strides forward in physician recruitment,” she said. “The commitment of everyone involved—existing physicians, the Town of Creston staff and council, RDCK directors, Interior Health and area residents—makes this an ideal community to promote.”