Health
January 29, 2008 10:04 AM
beingwell magazine Winter 2008
Southlake Regional Health Centre has a long and successful history of pursuing excellence in the
delivery of patient care services. Pressured to keep pace with growth, during the past 15 years Southlake has experienced major physical expansion and has increased the number and types of services it offers.
Today, it employs some of Canada’s most talented health care professionals, and has celebrated a ‘world first’ within its regional cardiac program. Adept at anticipating future needs, Southlake is not only in the process of building a state-of-the-art cancer centre, scheduled to open in 2009, but is also moving forward with plans to introduce a comprehensive teaching agenda.
At its Sept. 27 meeting, the hospital board of directors passed a motion directing Southlake’s administration to proceed with the development of a family medicine residency teaching program in affiliation with the University of Toronto and the Southlake family health team.
“Teaching is the next step in Southlake’s evolution to become a centre of health care knowledge and excellence,” hospital president and CEO Dan Carriere says. “Our people have the skills and the hospital has the regional programs and equipment needed to provide meaningful educational experiences to family doctors in training.”
The benefits of becoming a teaching centre means:
• greater opportunities to recruit and retain new physicians to the area;
• enhanced overall quality of care by keeping up-to-date with advances in technology and knowledge;
• greater patient satisfaction as more doctors are available to interact with patients during their hospital stay;
• access to university resources;
• enhanced research opportunities; and
• the ability to recognize and validate the level of expertise that already exists at Southlake.
At the present time, about 100 of Southlake’s affiliated physicians and staff now teach at some level, logging 1,700 student days at the health centre annually. With as many as 20,000 local residents without a family doctor, the need to focus on family medicine training is an important fit for Southlake and will provide tremendous benefits to the communities it serves.
“Teaching is nothing new to Southlake. We have a long history of accommodating observers, clerks, residents and fellows in various programs throughout the hospital,” Mr. Carriere says.
“What’s different is that we are going to place a greater focus on teaching family medicine because we are confident it will improve access to primary care for the residents of York Region and south Simcoe County.”
A formalized commitment to teach will require significant planning and a willingness on the part of physicians, staff, and volunteers to embrace a culture that places learning objectives at the forefront, says Dr. Nancy Merrow, Southlake’s chief of staff.
“Accepting responsibility to open a residency teaching program is a huge responsibility and will change the way we approach the delivery of patient care at Southlake,” she says. “We are eager to move forward but, at the same time, we want to do so carefully and thoughtfully to ensure that when we do introduce this new program, it will be received positively by patients, our residents, and existing physicians, staff and volunteers.”
Southlake’s family health team will serve as the home base for the family medicine residency teaching program, set to begin in July in the new Medical Arts Building. When the program is fully developed, there will be 18 residents at Southlake in any given year who will spend time not only in the family health team offices, but in a number of specialty areas within the hospital, including cardiac, cancer, maternal child, surgery and medicine, as they complete a series of rotations.
For more information on this topic or any other programs and services offered at Southlake, contact the hospital’s corporate communications department at 905-895-4521, ext. 2541.