THUNDER BAY -- The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is short about 30 specialists, but hospital officials say they're in a better position than they have been in years.
Executive vice president of medicine doctor Stewart Kennedy said at times there have been up to 40 vacancies and calls it standard.
Kennedy said they're always advertising for physicians, specialists and general practitioners to come to Thunder Bay and set up practice.
He added that one of their strategies focuses on recruiting graduates from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as they are most likely to stay in Thunder Bay.
“We have local physicians doing the teaching and the training, they are developing relationships with our local physicians here at the medical school as well as the hospital,” Kennedy said.
“They can begin to develop a relationship with the physicians already passing here, that’s our biggest thing is personal contact, making sure they have opportunities they want to pursue here at the Thunder Bay Regional.”
Child psychiatry, urology and pathology are some of the areas with the biggest doctor shortages.
Kennedy stresses those shortages have never impacted patient care.
(TBT News)
