Established in 2006, the Prince Edward Family Health Team (PEFHT or the  Family Health Team) is a corporation that has the mandate to provide primary healthcare services to the residents of Prince Edward County. The Family Health Team has close to 40 staff and is comprised of allied healthcare providers like Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, Social Workers, Registered Dieticians, a pharmacist, and administrative personnel. These team members work in concert with family physicians to support comprehensive, team-based Primary Care. The Family Health Team offers a number of different programs and services and has sites in both Picton and Wellington. 

Your family doctor is typically your first point of contact with the health care system in Prince Edward County. They are trained to diagnose the whole person and play an essential role in your and your family’s health.

Every physician carries a different number of patients, but usually has a practice size around 1000, sometimes slightly higher or lower. This is really dependent on the other commitments and responsibilities the physician has. For example, our family physicians work in a variety of settings, particularly in rural areas like the County. These include caring for hospitalized patients, covering the Emergency Department, care at hospice or long-term care homes, and supporting clinical programs at the Family Health Team. These other responsibilities will also impact the number of days they are in their office in a given week.

Yes. Most people don’t realize that the physicians in Prince Edward County run independent business practices. They hire their own employees, such as admin and nursing support, carry leases, and pay for clinic supplies. They do not get paid vacation or sick time, nor do they have paid medical benefits. 

Prince Edward County currently has five physician vacancies, with more to come in 2023. Patients are falling through the cracks and being ‘orphaned.’ Orphaned means a person does not have a family physician.

While bringing new physicians to Prince Edward County is important, it is equally important to keep the ones we have. This means we need to think about such things as workload, mentorship, and professional development. We also have to consider a physician’s values and fit with the community, including opportunities for spouses and children. Support from community partners is central to this goal.

There is no science to recruiting a physician. Our approach is to expand our reach to new physicians through job postings, advertising and presence at job fairs and conferences. We are also increasing our engagement activities with prospective physicians to showcase the benefits of living and working in Prince Edward County. It’s important that both parties feel that it’s a good fit. 

No, the physician recruiter’s role is to help recruit physicians to work in Prince Edward County. If you are in need of a family doctor you should register with Health Care Connect (https://www.ontario.ca/page/find-family-doctor-or-nurse-practitioner) 

Yes, it does. The family physicians working in Prince Edward County do take people off the HCC waitlist and roster them into their practice. What has changed over the years is the increasing complexity of people’s healthcare status. This results in fewer people being accepted into practices at one time, off the HCC waitlist, as it takes more time to stabilize a person’s health. 

Accommodations in Prince Edward County have increased in cost significantly over the years, which has also impacted our ability to provide reasonably priced accommodations to locums. Locums are fully licensed physicians that provide temporary coverage of an existing practice. The County Docs Recruitment and Retention initiative has launched the Doctor Accommodation Network (DAN) to support Housing for locums and new physicians. 

Financial incentives can be appealing to new medical graduates and support them in setting up a practice where they may not have otherwise considered doing so. This is especially true when it comes to rural medicine. While these incentives and the competitiveness of them is an important strategy in recruitment, the overall fit of a community also plays an important role in decision-making and requires a collaborative community approach. County Docs is working on creating a competitive and comprehensive package for new physicians.

Physicians and all other allied healthcare and administrative team members are needed to operate our current and future hospital in Prince Edward County. We feel a new hospital is a wonderful attractor for a new physician to join other physicians in Prince Edward County to practice family medicine. 

The simple answer to that is no. Since 2016, 11 new family physicians have been recruited to practice in Prince Edward County. The challenges to finding new physicians started during the pandemic. Comparable communities with mature physician recruitment programs appear to be making some progress, so we expect to be able to do the same as we get more established.