Medical students receive an appreciative Huntsville welcome

Featured photo (from left): Michelle Taylor with two of her children, Zach Kuehner, Meghan Dmitriew, Mayor Scott Aitchison, Veronique Doucet, Cassandra Quan, Erin Creasor, Luke Wu and Councillor Bob Stone (missing: Michael Falconi). All of the students except for Meghan Dmitriew, Zach Kuehner and Luke Wu will be based in Huntsville.

A new group of medical students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) were welcomed to Huntsville today (September 2) at Civic Square.

The eight students come from across Ontario and five will spend the bulk of their time in Huntsville while the other three will be in Bracebridge. They will be in Muskoka from now through April 2017 and will complete their entire third year of medical education in our community. They are here to learn, of course, and the hope is that some will choose to return to Huntsville or Muskoka once they have graduated.

“We’ve really enjoyed hosting students every year,” said Mayor Scott Aitchison in an address to the students. “It’s not just great for you, it’s also great for our community. We are hopeful, of course, that as you complete your schooling and your studies that you might consider coming back and serving this community… It’s full of engaged people who care about what’s going on and care about each other.”

They’ve already experienced the warmth of the Muskoka community, said Luke Wu on behalf of the students. “We want to thank everyone for being so welcoming to us. We’re really pumped to get started here, and develop some good connections and relationships with the community… Part of it is learning to be a good community member and understanding the socioeconomic factors that come into play that affect health. To be able to do that we need to be part of the community so thank you so much for involving us and for giving us such great learning experiences.”

Their time will be divided between practical experience and classroom learning. “About half of their time will be spent doing clinical learning in the offices of our local family practice physicians,” said Sue Featherston, NOSM Site Administrative Coordinator. “An additional 25 per cent will be spent learning from the various specialists – in the OR with the surgeons and anesthesiologists, with the internal medicine physicians, in the emergency room, with our local physiatrists (physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians) and palliative care team, and other allied health practitioners. The remaining 25 per cent is spent doing academic learning in the classroom thorough peer group learning facilitated by the physicians.”

There are 40 physicians in Huntsville that work with the students in some capacity, and those that will have students in their offices are Dr. Bastedo, Dr. Small, Dr. Stephenson, Dr. McLinden, Dr. Bozek, Dr. Mathies, Dr. Rea and Dr. Forestell.

Placements like this are important to medical school since the best type of learning is hands-on training supervised by practising physicians. Communities like ours allow students to learn first-hand how rural medicine works.
Sue Featherston, NOSM Site Administrative Coordinator

Placements for the approximately 70 third-year students at NOSM are done via a lottery. Every year approximately 70 per cent of the graduates begin their practice in rural towns with approximately 80 per cent working in Northern Ontario, said Featherston. “The mandate of the school to help increase access to physicians in rural and northern Ontario is certainly working. As for our specific community, we have had two students that were clerkship students return to practice medicine here.” NOSM opened in 2005 and its first graduates completed their studies in 2009.

Huntsville is also involved in the residency elective program which will see approximately 50 students and residents come to our community for shorter periods of time than the clerks and of those elective learners, six have returned to practice here.

“Our community is starting to receive a lot of requests from residents from other schools such as U of T, Queens and McMaster for residency elective placements,” said Featherston. “Our surgeons, anesthesiologist, internists and emergency medicine physicians are starting to get a reputation at other larger schools for their very strong teaching program.”

Mayor Scott Aitchison said he’s talked briefly with some of the students about what we can do to change the way we deliver our health services so that those services can not just be saved but be made better. “A couple of students said they’ve heard a few things here and there, but more about the rationalization of services and stopping the merger of the two hospitals. I think outside of Muskoka right now, except for the Ministry of Health, most people don’t know exactly what we’re up to. That tells me that we need to make sure that message gets out there loud and clear what we’re trying to achieve with this council (the Muskoka and Area Health System Transformation Council or MAHST). It’s not simply to keep the hospital open in Huntsville and the hospital open in Bracebridge. It’s about enhancing those services and making sure patient access to care is better, and patient outcomes are better.”

Aitchison added that the poorest members of our community are the highest users of health care services and that the municipality can work to change that. “Ensuring adequate housing is available, trying to improve economic circumstances for people and trying to make sure that we do everything we can to lift people out of that cycle of poverty will take strain off of the health care system. It is going to require a multifaceted approach including looking for ways to solve the housing problem in Huntsville because that’s the beginning of it all.”

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