Registrar placements relieve pressure

Registrar placements relieve pressure

West Coast GP’s will receive some workload relief as the result of successfully attracting two registrars under a Government scholarship scheme.

Westland Medical Centre and the High Street Medical Practice will be better resourced from 26 February and it is expected the relief will have flow down effects for the entire region.

The registrars who are qualified doctors are embarking on a three year training programme which will see them qualify in their speciality as General Practitioners.

The placement which consists of two twenty week rotations is part of a national training programme offered by the NZ College of General Practice and Clinical Training Agency.

Placement of registrars is limited by the number of teaching practices in a region. Currently only Dr Anna Dyzel at the Westland Medical Centre and Dr Greville Wood are qualified.

Dr Greville Wood from the West Coast DHB owner of the Dobson practice will be providing supervision for one of the registrars while they work at High Street Medical.

“Dr Wood’s work with expanding the infrastructure for medical student teaching should be acknowledged as increasing the profile of the Coast as a learning centre,” said Dr Dyzel.

“The high turnover of medical practitioners affects our ability to establish more teaching practices throughout the Region and the loss of Dr Julian Ashburner in Reefton has reduced the number of training practices from 3 to 2” she said. We are hoping that Westport, Greymouth and South Westland practices will be able to join the role in 2008.”

WCDHB General Manager of Primary Care Hecta Williams said she was excited by the programme as the DHB had always maintained that exposing doctors to the West Coast early in their career meant they were much more likely to return once they had completed their training.
The programme has also provided an excellent opportunity for DHB owned and privately owned practices to work together on something that benefits both medical professionals and the public alike.

There are only 15 rural registrar placements available each year and attracting them to the West Coast has proved difficult.

The Westland Medical Centre Community Trust has been working closely with the Westland Medical Centre to attract and retain medical professionals to the region and confirmation of the placements is encouraging.

“This is excellent news, it has taken years for us to get the Clinical Training Agency programme operating in the region – finally we are getting somewhere,” said Dr Dyzell.

The $15,000 scholarship offered by the Clinical Training Agency was not sufficient on its own to attract registrars to the region. “It has taken the support of the Westland Medical Centre Community Trust, the West Coast Development Trust and the West Coast Primary Health Organisation (PHO) to make this happen,” she said.

CEO of the West Coast Development Trust, Mike Trousselot said, “Our community health services can only benefit from having these registrars working here and we are pleased that our contribution of $60,000 over three years has assisted in enabling the programme.”

The additional funds mean that not only does the Coast get two more qualified doctors for 40 weeks each, but there is sufficient funding to bond them for a further three month period after their training.

Dr Dyzel added that the bond period would see the registrars move around the region, providing support for practices and enabling Doctors to take holidays at the end of the year. The West Coast PHO will co-ordinate the bond period making the doctors available over the whole Coast – from Karamea to Haast.

“Longer term we hope to encourage regular registrar presence and to keep things rolling. The availability of additional Registrars also means support for medical student training while on internships, but the best outcome we can hope for is that the experience and opportunities presented in our training practices encourages the registrars to speak highly of the region and influence longer term commitments,” said Dr Dyzel.

The Registrars come from the Otago and Christchurch Schools of Medicine. They are Genevieve Weeber and Maysoon Abbas.

ENDS

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