Prince George, B.C.- You could say he is the new poster child for the  Northern Medical Program.

Dr. Alym Abdulla is a graduate of the Northern Medical Program ( class of 2009)  and returns following specialty training to  practice as the newest urologist in the community.  He is a pioneer of sorts,  becoming the first specialist  to return to the region.

After graduating from the Northern Medical progam he spent another 5 years   at McMaster University   for specialist training in urology, and brings with him his skills in laparoscopic surgery.

Dr. Abdulla says one of the factors that brought him back to Prince George, is the excellent group of physicians and nurses working in this community. “A lot of these guys are really the ones who paved the way for me to go out and seek training in urology.” He says he kept in touch with many of his contacts made during his time with the Northern Medical program.

“Our first graduate to return as a specialist to northern B.C. marks another achievement for the Northern Medical Program,” said Dr. Paul Winwood, who is the head of the Northern Medical program at UNBC. “By educating medical students in the North, we’re hoping to provide a steady, reliable source of physicians for the region. The arrival of Dr. Abdulla shows how the province’s long-term investment in distributed education is now coming to fruition.”

Dr. Abdulla says the community can be proud of the program it helped create “This whole medical program, everything that we are seeing and where we’re sitting, is all because of the community’s voice and the Province listening” says Dr. Abdulla. He’s referring to the massive healthcare rally in Prince George in June of 2000, out of which the Northern Medical program was born.

The NMP celebrated its first graduating class in 2008 with many grads then moving into two to five years of medical residency training for specialties.

There has been some criticism sent the Northern Medical Programs way saying the program wasn’t resulting in the expected number of physicians who would stay in the north. “The important thing to realize is that these things take time, they eventually happen” says Dr. Abdulla “25 years ago, there was no university here, now there’s a university, now there’s a medical school, now there’s a cancer centre. The building blocks are here, the specialists, I am very optimistic will come, and you will only see this grow moving forward.”

Dr. Abdulla will set up his office in the Phoenix Medical centre and will start taking patients in October.