'A great day for Saint John'
Published Thursday June 5th, 2008
Health care Supporters celebrate go-ahead for program to train doctors, 'but there's lots of work to do in two years'
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SANDRA DAVIS
Telegraph-Journal
KâtÈ LeBlanc/Telegraph-Journal
SAINT JOHN - When it became official that Saint John's medical education program has a home, one of the first things Dr. Michael Barry did was survey the site from the Saint John Regional Hospital side.
Pat Darrah, left, and Dr. Mike Barry high-five in front of the Saint John Regional Hospital in celebrating the news this week that the province’s anglophone medical education program will start in the city in September 2010.
"I thought, 'What a nice venue.' It's right near where we probably would have built the building," he said.
"We just walk right through the parking lot to the hospital and over the pedway."
Barry, the president of the region's medical staff and the Saint John Board of Trade's new chairman, and Pat Darrah, chairman of the program's co-ordinating committee for the anglophone regions, have been celebrating in their own way since this week's news that, come 2010, the Saint John College building on the UNBSJ campus will house the English-language medical program.
Barry and Darrah, who have worked diligently for nearly four years to make sure the city clinched the school, seem to have a unique way of marking the milestone - instead of taking a breather and breaking out the champagne they are plotting their next move.
"I feel relieved that this phase is over," said Barry, acknowledging that the location was probably one of the biggest hurdles and that he knew an announcement was inching closer when he was told a consultant had been hired "to push the location over the goal line."
Now comes the planning and implementation.
"There's a lot of work to do in two years," Barry said.
"We're at the first stage and there's going to be bumps. We'd like to see the money released quickly for the implementation so we can put people in place."
An assistant dean will be needed to look after the Saint John campus and others to look after program and curriculum development, he said. Information technology equipment has to be purchased and building renovations made.
On Wednesday, Dr. Harold Cook, dean of the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, was already in the city, touring the Regional Hospital morgue to make sure everything is up to speed for an anatomy lab. The program is an extension of Dalhousie University's medical school,
"The kids will have an ideal environment for learning," said Barry. "This is a real catalyst and nucleus for a health science complex where we can get everybody under one roof eventually and have a bang-up training facility for research, medical and allied health training."
If the rest of the country is any indication, Barry expects it won't be long before the Saint John medical program will have to expand to meet the need; initially, it will accept 30 students each year.
"Many of our docs are going to start to retire and those are the core of our medical staff," he said, "so we're going to ramp up capacity as we need it and once we're ready."
The affinity for the area that local students will develop means that they are more apt to stay in the region, he said.
"We know the retention rate if you train locally is two and three times what it is for people outside. The University of New Brunswick in Saint John is going to be a magnet," he said, because of its proximity to the hospital.
"It gives major legitimacy to our university. It puts us at another level and gives us a real niche. The whole health-care complex starts to grow. The spinoffs from research, development and other programs are synergistic."
Darrah, who describes his fight for the medical program as the longest volunteer job he has ever had, is certain that it is the answer to the province's physician shortage. In fact, that is the issue that got the ball rolling.
"Somebody gave me a report about the depth of the problem over the next 10 or 15 years," he said.
"The ratio of doctors who stayed in the community or province of where they trained is much higher than when they go away."
Darrah said the kudos for landing the medical program have to go to many people, including Premier Shawn Graham, Post-Secondary Education Minister Ed Doherty, Health Minister Mike Murphy and the rest of the area MLAs, along with fellow medical-program committees in Fredericton, Moncton and Miramichi. Doherty's department is funding the program to the tune of $622,000.
"It was not a one-man show in any way, shape or form," Darrah said.
Saint John MP Paul Zed also congratulated Graham for selecting a building and Doherty for "his dogged perseverance in navigating this critically important project through government for Saint John and New Brunswick.
"Today is a great day for Saint John, and for all of New Brunswick as Premier Shawn Graham has fulfilled a key commitment from his 2006 election platform with the establishment of the Saint John medical education program," said Zed.
"Saint John and all of New Brunswick have an acute shortage of doctors and the establishment of this program will go a long way to alleviating the pressure on the health-care system and will help to ensure that everyone in New Brunswick has access to a family doctor."
The agreement, which will be signed on Tuesday, will enable Dalhousie University to deliver its four-year undergraduate medical program beginning in September 2010.
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