Random Access

"We're going to grow our own family doctors."
No, that's not a twisted source with a big bump on his shoulder speaking, as thunders roars in the background, from the nether depths of the bio-genetics department at UTM. It's Wayne Fyffe, president and CEO of Credit Valley Hospital (CVH), talking about a new program that launches here July 1.
Although it hasn't attracted much fanfare, the opening of the prosaically-titled Family Medicine Training Unit (FMTU) is a big deal in this city and should have a big impact on a problem that doesn't receive much attention: the fact that a lot of Mississaugans (up to 20 per cent by some estimates) can't find a family doctor.
It's fine to make healthy living and preventive medicine an overriding priority in a reformed primary care system, but that sensible strategy isn't much good if families can't get access to primary care in the first place.
The supply of more family doctors through the FMTU is critical to CVH and our community, but is really just a spinoff benefit to some much more basic advantages as far as the provincial government is concerned.
Giving new doctors a strong grounding in family medicine under the watchful eye of veterans of the field before they go into practice is one of those.
Allowing new graduates to practice from the get-go in the new world of collaborative medicine, where the doctor's time is spent doing what a doctor should and various nurse practitioners, nurses, dieticians, pharmacists, physiotherapists help the patient see as little of the doctor as possible, is another.
Here's how FMTU works. Every year when they graduate from the U of T Medical School, a group of new doctors (nine in each of two years eventually) will set up shop in the office building at the south-east corner of Eglinton Ave. and Erin Mills Pkwy. There, they'll take classes with a group of experienced family doctors who have their own practices there.
The freshly-minted docs will see a limited number of patients under the guidance of their supervisors, and get oriented to the complicated world of health care and, especially, the greater role that community agencies such as Peel Health and the Community Care Access Committee (which provides home care) will play. It's what used to be called a medical internship.
The leader of the program is well-respected local doctor David Clarkson who is winding down his own career by helping to gear up the careers of a new generation.
Experience elsewhere suggests that a good number of new doctors who go through this kind of program are likely to set up shop in the neighbouring vicinity. Even if they don't, the hospital will benefit in the short run because it will have a place to refer patients who come to the emergency department and don't need to be admitted, but do need to see a family physician.
The value of an old hand watching over recent graduates - something he benefited from personally when he first started practicing in Mississauga, is hard to underestimate, according to Dr. Clarkson.
"The mentoring role is critical for family doctors and for specialists," he says. "It's important that doctors know how to think, how to behave and how to balance work and life."
Sometimes those new-fangled concepts, convoluted acronyms and P.R. spins cover up something that truly is valuable: some good old-fashioned common sense.