Rural recruitment focus for new top doctor

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This article was published 13/03/2024 (919 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A family physician who was born and raised in a small community southeast of Winnipeg is the province’s new chief medical officer — and Dr. Jose Francois says Brandon plays an important role when it comes to training future doctors.

A bilingual doctor from Ste. Anne, Francois has held leadership roles within Shared Health, including the medical specialty lead for family medicine and acting medical specialty lead for emergency medicine. He has also served as associate professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College.

For his new role, said Francois, the province has taken the current job outline and reformulated it to be more collaborative.

“What’s new about this role, it has an advisory component to the minister of health, which previously wasn’t there, so it looks at our hospital system, works with services within the community and long-term care facilities,” Francois said.

“It’s also working with a number of physician leaders in our system. And that can be the head of surgery, the head of family medicine, or the head of pediatrics and the regional health authority leaders to bring together a cohesive strategy around a number of health issues in our system.”

Francois’ new position is not to be confused with Dr. Brent Roussin, who is the province’s chief public health officer, he added.

“This brings the position a little more in line with Dr. Roussin and is actually complementary. Dr. Roussin looks at things from the population health perspective and this is really about the delivery of health services. There is overlap, but this brings a slightly different perspective,” Francois said.

Just three weeks ago, Francois was named physician of the year by Doctors Manitoba, the province’s non-partisan physicians’ advocacy group.

That’s the same group that released a national study in October 2023 showing Manitoba has the second-lowest number of doctors per capita in Canada and sits at rock bottom when it comes to the per-capita number of family physicians.

Francois has been to Brandon “several times” as the department head for family medicine and says the Brandon Regional Health Centre “plays a very important role in terms of training future doctors.”

“We now have 11 training sites across Manitoba, and most of our sites are rural. Actually, the majority of the residents we now train in family medicine are trained outside of Winnipeg,” Francois said.

Along with Brandon, medical residents are trained in Dauphin, Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, Thompson, Steinbach, Morden, Winkler, Steinbach, Ste. Anne and Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes.

But the challenge, Francois added, is keeping the doctors in the same area they received training.

“When we look at recruitment strategies, we need to sort of push the rural agenda,” he said. “Thinking about the opportunities for their partners is very important, especially if they’re bringing spouses and family. Things like schools, activities within communities and making communities attractive for people to stay long term is a very important piece here.

“So, we’re making sure that we are training enough people, that we are recruiting enough people. It is a bit of a numbers game, but it’s also a bit of a selling game when it comes to holding on to people.”

Additionally, Francois said he supports the team-based model of care in health-care facilities in which a physician has a nurse, nurse practitioner, physician assistant or another health professional to share in the work.

International recruitment will be another piece of the strategy to bring more doctors to Manitoba, he added.

“There’s not a single magic prescription for this — we need layered strategies,” Francois said.

Shared Health CEO Lanette Siragusa said throughout Francois’ career, he has been an advocate for primary care and the value of inter-professional teams, with the goal of improving access, quality and equity of care for patients.

“We cannot wait to see the energy and passion that Jose will bring to this new role, the strategies he will champion and the new ideas he will implement to improve health services for both patients and providers,” Siragusa said in a news release.

Francois said he has never shied away from a challenge, and added, “I think there’s a lot of opportunity to make a difference and that’s why I’ve chosen to step up to this role.”

“I’m not saying everything’s rosy, and some of the work will be hard. Knowing people in the various regional health authorities that we have across this province, we have a fabulous group of people that really want to make a difference,” he said.

“So, when we think about all the people that are working on our front lines, whether that’s in a long-term care facility or in a hospital or primary-care clinic, they all want to do a good job. We just need to be able to be there to support them, help them and listen to what great ideas they may have.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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