The CAMROSE BOOSTER, January 13, 2015 – Page 22
New doctors settling in to life in Camrose By Dan Jensen
The three new general practitioners at the Smith Clinic are settling in to their new careers. Dr. Ansar Pasha qualified in medicine in India in 1992, but has practiced for the last 13 years in the United Kingdom. “I specialized in surgery for 12 years, but then switched to general practice,” he said. “I completed my general practice training in 2007.” Dr. Pasha moved to Camrose in October so he could be closer to his sister, who lives in Calgary. He started accepting new patients Nov. 12. “We had been toying with the idea of moving from the UK to North America,” he said. “I have family here and my wife has a large part of her family in North America. We visited Alberta in 2013 and saw a couple of different areas, but found that we liked Camrose most of all. I used to reside in a small town and I have been a small town boy since I grew up so this is just the pace that I am most used to.” Dr. Pasha said that moving to Camrose gives him the opportunity to achieve a new balance in his practice. “I am able to do general practice, but I can also do hospital medicine and work in emergency.” Dr. Pasha and his wife have three children who are currently attending school in the UK. “My girls are in their late teens and are looking at attending university, most
Dr. Ogo Anizoba, Dr. Kayode Leslie, Covenant Health St. Mary’s Hospital medical director Art Jaroni and Dr. Ansar Pasha. The new doctors are settling into life in Camrose after starting their practices at Smith Clinic late last year.
likely in the UK,” he said, “but my wife and my son are going to be moving here in the summer.” Dr. Ogo Anizoba started seeing patients in Camrose on Nov. 8 after practicing medicine in South Africa for the past 10 years. “I wanted to change my scope of practice and also the place in which I was practicing,” said Dr. Anizoba. “Camrose was attractive to me because I have friends who are here.” Dr. Anizoba has noticed a few differences in the medical system here as compared to South Africa, where the government continues to fight hard and is
making progress against AIDS. “In South Africa we do a lot of paperwork, but here everything is computerbased,” he said. “The services are also better coordinated here and everything is more hands-on.” Dr. Anizoba and his wife have two boys who spent time vacationing in the United States before Christmas. He is very keen to take on new hobbies, like hunting, fishing and playing hockey. His practice interests include chronic disease management, geriatrics, prenatal care and anesthesia. Dr. Kayode Leslie graduated from medical school in
Nigeria in 1995 and completed his post graduate training in South Africa, where he practiced for 12 years before moving to Camrose take over the practice of Dr. Gerald Tober. “I have been coming to Canada for the past couple of years to visit family and friends and I happen to have family and friends who live here,” he said. “I have found the community to be very humble. The people I have met are so warm and welcoming. They make me feel like I am home.” Dr. Leslie was quick to observe that patients in Canada receive more extended
medical support than they do in South Africa. “There is good acute care in South Africa but the care drops off once you leave the hospital,” he said. “Here there are more supporting programs in the community like home care and long term care.” Dr. Leslie said he has always been attracted to places like Camrose more so than bigger cities like Calgary or Edmonton. “This city has everything I need so to me it doesn’t feel small to me at all.” Dr. Leslie has a wife and two young children.
Physician recruitment committee hopes to build on success By Dan Jensen
The Camrose Physician Recruitment and Retention committee is hoping to build on recent success in 2015. “We have one full-time physician posting out there and are still doing some recruiting,” said committee chair Leanne Grant. “We are estimating that with the number of doctors who are starting to think about possible retirement and the programming changes that are coming that we are might have to recruit another eight.” The committee coordinated a four-day site visit for a physician complete with a dinner at Stockman’s Chophouse and a tour of the community, and is hoping he will be able to start practicing in May, although September is more likely. “We had a posting for a long period of time and we want him to come,” said Grant. The committee has been instrumental in the last month in filling three longstanding vacancies for gener-
al practitioners. The success, says Grant, is the result of many factors, including the proximity of Camrose to the larger centres, the number of services that the city has to offer, and, perhaps most importantly, the work of volunteers who take the physicians under their wings when they come for a site visit. “If the doctors who come in want to know about the school system we match them with someone from the school system who can talk to them and answer their questions,” said Grant. “The same would go for real estate. We match them with agents who are able to meet their needs so they are able to find a place to stay.” Grant said the work of the volunteers helps to make for better physician retention over the long run. “When we have volunteers meet with them or their families and support them we are helping them build a network of friends. If we gave them a package with a whole bunch of gift
certificates and a car they might not have the chance to have that interaction.” The Camrose Physician Recruitment and Retention committee does not pay an external recruiter to help find doctors, and, unlike some other rural communities which offer the use of a car for a few months, does not offer an attraction package. “The physicians enjoy having access to a car for three months to use while they are getting their finances taken care of but that is not the only thing they consider when they make the decision to settle down in a community,” said Grant. “They also want to know whether they can practice the way that they want, whether they have access to acute care, and whether they have access to other physicians who are going to support them when they need to take time off. They also want to know whether their family will be able to blend well into the community or
whether their spouse will be able to find work.” The normal amount of time that passes between the doctor first making contact with the Camrose Physician Recruitment and Recruitment committee and the start of his or her practice is about a year. “The usual practice is that the physicians apply for a position,” said Grant. “After talking back and forth with the committee for a while they come for a site visit. If that turns out well Alberta Health Services makes a offer of employment and they start to go through all the paperwork that is required before they are able to start work in a new country. Over the last few years that is where we have seen the biggest delay.” The physicians are also required to present their credentials to the Alberta College of Physicians, which makes the determination of whether they have to go through a three month assessment.
“It usually takes about three months for us to get that assessment arranged,” said Grant. “With Dr. Anizoba, for example, he was here in Camrose for a month before he was able to do that, so he had a period of four months in which he was in transition. With Dr. Pasha his credentials were such that he didn’t have to do the three month assessment, so his time was shorter.” The doctors receive financial support from Alberta Health Services during their time of transition. “If they are coming from international places AHS will help them out through the assessment period by giving them money to start out with and support their immigration and so forth,” said Grant. “We estimate the amount that AHS pays to support an international doctor is $50,000. That is not money the doctor gets but money to fund the process to get them here.” Continued on page 27