UNBC Launches Physiotherapy Program
Saturday, April 28, 2012 @ 5:13 AM
Prince George, B.C. – A new program aimed at producing more physiotherapists for northern and rural communities officially began this week. Ten students from the Master of Physiotherapy program at UBC are in Prince George as part of the Northern and Rural Cohort (NRC), an innovative approach to education involving UNBC, UBC, Northern Health, and local physiotherapy providers.
“Right now, access to rehabilitation services in the North is a significant problem, in part because there is a serious shortage of rehabilitation providers,” says Robin Roots, Coordinator of Clinical Education for the Northern and Rural Cohort. “Communities such as Prince Rupert have closed their physiotherapy department because of a lack of physiotherapists. The Northern and Rural Cohort is a new initiative that aims to address this workforce crisis.”
The Cohort allows for 20 physiotherapy students to complete the majority of their clinical placements in northern BC and rural communities each year, with UNBC serving as the clinical education hub. It will officially begin in September 2012. The aim is to increase recruitment and retention of physiotherapists to northern and rural communities through offering Physiotherapy students the opportunity to experience rural practice and life during their clinical education.
Comments
Will this work???
Did the program work with the Doctors?? Remember the phrase **Train them in the North and they will stay in the North**> I havent seen any stats lately that would indicate that people who train in the North actually stay here. It would be interesting to see how the program is actually working.
On the other hand the North is such a big area, maybe the program is working, but we do not see the benefits in Prince George.
CNC has been educating/training dental Hygienists in PG for a couple of decades. Do they stay in the north? Someone might have the stats.
But really, who cares? People in this country are free to go where they wish, including other provinces and other countries.
One thing that I think is true, if one provides the facilities, people will come. The better the facilities, the easier it is to keep people.
Having a university here has helped to recruit people to the PG region. Having a medicine program here has helped to recruit doctors here because they can become part of the huge teaching group. It helped in improving the facilities at the hospital. It helped to bring a Cancer clinic here, I am sure.
Remember the concern about getting oncologists here to populate the cancer clinic? Does not seem to have been a problem.
Remember the stats that showed that PG is one of the worst places to live in Canada, primarily based on crime? … of course, everyone remembers that. Well, the cityâs strongest showing was in the category of number of doctors per 1,000 people, which saw the city rank 53rd out of 190 cities.
Here are the raw numbers for 6 or so years ago for BC
http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/files/publications/mphc/mphc/update/pdfs/PHCphysicianftes.pdf
The worst areas are Richmond, Fraser South, Fraser North, and the Northeast.
After that comes Fraser East, Central Island, Thompson-Cariboo.
Then comes the Northern Interior (PG), North Shore
The most primary health physicians are in Vancouver with the Northwest following closely behind, then South Island.
So, other than the northwest, the real shortage is in the high growth area of the Fraser Valley. Doctors moving in are not keeping up with the growth.
Whether that is still the case now, I do not know. I suspect it is.
Palopu, the benefits are there and this program really does work. My cousin spent 15 years to become a Nerologist. She could have gone to any number of clinics around the world. Brain Docs are in high demand.
Instead , she came home.
The Northern Medical program offered her the chance to practice and teach and raise a family in her own hometown. I can’t find any fault in that. I’d say the program is working just fine.
stats? Getting reliable stats and not inflated ones is a problem in Prince George. PG is very isolated in term of access to specialist doctors. It is more than 700 KM away from them and one cannot compare PG with Vancouver island townships which are in 20 km radius of Vancouver downtown.
Part of the growing problem is because of the decline of population in PG, but the problem was there even when the population was growing or was stable.
But blame the management for not providing stats or not providing reliable ones.
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