Physician shortage
...e utmost safety and care. The local medical community believes that rural Newfoundland physicians are overworked due to physician shortages and thus, are performing their duties of safe patient care at reduced capacity. In an inter view with The Beacon Newspaper, Dr. John Haggie said, “Doctors working long hours with no sleep is like driving while over the blood-alcohol limit.” This study found that medical students agreed with these statements. In fact 100% of medical students surveyed answered yes when asked if rural physicians were overworked. Figure 1 shows this finding. Apart from working long hours, rural physicians in Newfoundland are paid much less than their Atlantic urban and rural counterparts. Rural family doctors in Newfoundland average $4 per patient visit less than rural family doctors in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Existing and potential physicians in this province are not pleased with this statistic. An alarming 100% of physicians and medical professional interviewed believe physicians in rural Newfoundland to be under and unjustly paid. Furthermore 100% of medical students express the same belief. Figure 2 shows this finding. While research shows that 26 in 30, that is 87% of current medical students plan never to practice medicine in a rural area, it is not due to lack of interest in the field. In fact 80% of students reported being interested in learning more about opportunities available to rural physicians and 60% reported having already had a positive experience with rural medicine at some point. These two statistics are shown in Figures 3 and 4. So, if there is no lack of interest in rural medicine, what can account for the overwhelming doctor shortage in these areas? The answer is major flaws government methods of attracting and keeping physicians in rural Newfoundland. From the i...