A great presentation by Dr. Sean Groves, a family physician working in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, Canada that shows work and family life in northern Saskatchewan.

1. Life in La Ronge
Or...Why Rural General Practice
is the most rewarding discipline in Medicine.

3. Why Rural?

Personal Gains

Professional Satisfaction

Community Involvement

Challenges

4. Personal Gains

$$$ ???

Social and recreational opportunities

Pace of life

Rewarding environment

Family oriented

7. Professional Satisfaction

The last true generalist practice

Varied practice environment: In La Ronge, this
means emergency medicine, hospital based inpatient
care, geriatrics/long term care, family medicine
clinics, and weekly fly-out trips to our outposts

Patients of various background, ethnicity and culture

9. Opportunity to
Challenge Yourself Every Day

Building clinical confidence and acumen

Resource management and allocation

Opportunity for extended scope of practice (GP
Anaesthesia, GP Surgery, 3rd year Emergency
Medicine)

10. Community Involvement

Ample opportunity to be involved and make a
difference

Physicians are (often, but not always) respected
decision makers in the community

Can see the results of your suggestions!

Role in community development

Close knit atmosphere

12. Challenges in Rural Medicine

Boundary issues: your patients are sometimes your
friends

Gaps in resources

Professional isolation: Information Technology is
playing a bigger and bigger role in solving this
problem

Huge demand with potential for burnout: balancing
personal and professional commitments

16. Working in La Ronge

A real group practice, working collaboratively every
day and sharing practice experience and ideas

11 physicians

Salaried position with many additional benefits

Regular fly-out clinics (breaks up the week)

Challenging practice environment

Opportunity to be involved in training medical
students and residents

17. A Day in the Life

Group rounds at the hospital 8:30-9:30 am

10:00-12:00 Clinic

12:00-1:00 Lunch (at home! every day except flyout
days once a week)

1:00-5:00 Clinic

5:00-5:30 Tying up loose ends at the clinic

Fly-outs once per week – leave at 9:00 am and back
to La Ronge between 5:00 and 6:00 pm

21. Call

On call in La Ronge:

11 physicians each with 30 working days of holiday
and 15 working days of CME leave

Call works out to about 1 in 8 with 1 weekend call
every 4-5 weeks

Most importantly: Backup - there's always someone
with more experience than you just waiting to pick
up the phone when you need help or advice

22. Working as a Salaried Physician

Challenges:

Autonomy is number one (not so much clinical, but
more financial)

Less motivation to take on expanded roles

Contract is subject to budget renewal, funding
agency agreements (luckily our salary is tied to the
SMA's fee-for-service negotiations so when they
negotiate a raise, we get one too)

Little opportunity to write off your costs

23. Working as a Salaried Physician

Added CME funding on top of SMA and CORRP's
CME fund

Actual sick time: 1.5 paid days per month, so no
more “working through” the flu (and giving it to all
your patients)

Someone else runs the business (no hiring, no firing,
no overhead, etc.)

Guilt-free TIME WITH PATIENTS when you need
it

24. Working as a Salaried Physician

The Good:

Guaranteed income (even if you had to spend 40
minutes with a difficult elderly diabetic with
congestive heart failure, chronic renal failure,
COPD, and an A1C of 9.8)

Benefits package: employer paid pension plan, full
health and dental coverage, salary continuance plan
if you become disabled

Paid (!!!) Holidays

29. What I love about Rural Medicine
in La Ronge

Getting to know community members on an
intimate level

Taking actual part in the community (coaching
hockey, advocating for a fitness facility, community-
based health education, Crushers Hockey : )

Tackling social issues alongside community
members

Time spent pursuing outdoor activities (especially
on the lake)

A town of young families with lots of kids

30. What I love about Rural Medicine
in La Ronge

Extremely challenging medicine at times

Community-based physicians play a true role in
HELPING MOTIVATE CHANGE to address the
ongoing issues we see with health imbalances across
demographic and geographic regions in Canada

Get to meet and participate with people from varied
cultures and grow both as an individual and as a
professional

Not a day goes by that I don't learn something new
or feel challenged

31. So...

Challenge your perceptions of rural medicine

Build confidence in your clinical abilities

Enjoy life and pursue a challenging career (at the
same time!)

Come and work in Rural Saskatchewan!

32. Questions?