“She doesn’t want to go back to the cold.” He was offered a new job in Hawaii, and took it. Location? Mountains! Trees! Rivers! Ocean! All shiny. As long as you don’t mind endurance travel to get to loved ones elsewhere in the country, your spouse can find meaningful work and you don’t mind the lack of big-city entertainments. Rangel says of the hundred internist candidates she interviewed over the past two years, more than half dropped out when they saw where Humboldt really is. “They say, ‘Northern California!’” Rangel says, mock wonder in her voice. “I say, ‘Where in California do you think I am?’ They say, ‘San Francisco.’ I say, ‘No no no no, look on the map — north.’ I tell them I live in a town of 800 — Hydesville. Work in a town of 10,000. We have two stoplights. And they say, ‘No.’” Quality of life? Yes! Or, maybe. Azalea Realty’s Michelle Voyles, co-chair of the community health advisory board for Mad River, takes the hospital’s recruits on a tour when they come for an interview. She tells them about our diverse and high-performing schools, Humboldt State University, the ocean, the rivers, the beaches, the trails, the farmers markets, the mom-and-pop shops, the state and national parks. She drives them around Eureka, Arcata, Trinidad, Ferndale, Samoa. “They always ask about the tsunami sign,” says Voyles. She tells them about world-renowned earthquake scholar Lori Dengler up at HSU. They see the homeless people, too. And the layabouts on the Arcata Plaza. And, one time, the guys with the yaks. “I said, ‘Well, this is Arcata.’ They laughed.” What they don’t laugh at, says Karen Thomas, with Mad River’s recruitment team, is all the “abandoned buildings and ‘for rent,’ ‘for rent,’ ‘for rent’ as they’re driving through Eureka. I think we’ve lost candidates because of all the empty buildings.” Culture? Are we talking art galleries (thumbs up!)? Or something more, uh, mind-altering? In 2009, Jennifer and Judd Dawson, both doctors of osteopathy, moved to Arcata fresh out of their residencies in Colorado to work at two of Mad River Hospital’s primary care clinics. They were the ones who initiated contact with the hospital, says Jennifer Dawson — they wanted to live in a small town in Northern California, with
outdoor activities, good schools for their son, who was 2 at the time, and a low crime rate; Arcata seemed to fit. Judd went to work in Arcata, and Jennifer was stationed as the sole family provider at Six Rivers Medical Clinic in Willow Creek. She worked there four days a week. “My first day of work, I walked in and I had some patient tell me, ‘This is the pain medication I want.’ I said, ‘Really?’ They’re supposed to come in and explain to me what the problem is and then we discuss a plan of care.” And it was like this with many of her patients there, she says. “Providers had been prescribing pain meds to them for a very long time. The patients didn’t want to get off of them.” And they refused to do physical therapy or other pain management besides drugs. “A lot of patients gave me pushback,” she says. “They would argue with me and give excuses.” Down in Arcata, says Jennifer, an elderly patient told her husband she sold her meds to supplement her social security, and another one threatened Judd’s staff because he wouldn’t give him narcotics. Both Dawsons, at different times, filed police reports, she says. “It wasn’t a partnership to get people better,” she says. “They expected me to be their drug dealer.” Most of her patients also asked her about getting medical marijuana, she says; in her Colorado practice, it’s a rare request. “As we learned over time, that is how it works all over Humboldt County,” she says. “It wears on you when you’re trying to do the best for people and they don’t care, they just want to do what they want. It sucked the joy out of my job.” Finally, they’d had enough. “We took a short sale on our house and screwed our credit to get out of there,” says Jennifer. “We wanted out.” Several local recruiters and providers we talked to said the marijuana culture is a big doctor deterrent.
Redwood Aesthetic Medicine 10% Discount on Liquid Lift
November 1st thru December 31st
Botox Juvederm filler Photofacial Thermage Fractional Resurfacing Laser Hair Removal Customized Skin Care Gift Certificates Available
442-2088 • 2451 Buhne St., Eureka • www.redwoodaestheticmedicine.com
Maybe recruitment ef-
forts here need to take another approach, or at least add more tactics. Andy Jensen says it’s not actually that hard — he’s recruited dozens of doctors to Humboldt, he says, including for St. Joseph Hospital and, more recently, Eureka Internal Medicine where he has been the practice manager (he starts a new job in midNovember as the north coast regional manager for Partnership HealthPlan, a new Medi-Cal provider). You just have to cast a wide net. And, he says, he used to prepare recruits beforecontinued on next page
bookmark us:
m.northcoastjournal.com
northcoastjournal.com • North Coast Journal • Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013
13