Your Faculty / Fall 2005 - Faculty of Medicine - University of Calgary

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6 Education Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Dr. Doug Myhre If you build it they will come Taking medical care to rural Alberta By Alison Azer D r. Doug Myhre doesn’t need artwork to liven up his new Calgary office. Recently appointed associate dean, Rural & Regional Affairs for the Faculty of Medicine, Myhre looks out onto an urban cityscape of scaffolds, hard hats and forklifts. When asked if his surroundings clash with his rural sensibilities, he laughs: “We work in parallel – building and creating.” In fact, the construction-site-view off Myhre’s new office is entirely fitting. This man’s a mover and shaker in Alberta rural health care. And like the faculty he’s joined, Myhre is a builder. Jointly funded by the U of C Faculty of Medicine and The Alberta Rural Physician Action Plan (RPAP), the new position in Rural & Regional Affairs is designed to help the government and university meet the health care needs of rural Albertans and their physicians. The position is a timely response to a larger provincial plan designed to address a growing need identified by the Alberta government: to educate, recruit and retain rural physicians in Alberta. Rural health care is a vital part of keeping Alberta’s small towns alive. A town without a physician just isn’t sustainable. The presence of good health care helps stabilize smaller communities. But it’s not as simple as dropping a well-trained physician in to a remote corner of Alberta. Because rural physicians must respond to a wide range of patient care demands, lack of immediate access to the larger medical community, technology and expertise often makes life as a rural doctor a trying and isolating experience Physicians must work within a larger medical context. When not commuting between Lethbridge and Calgary, Dr. Doug Myhre enjoys woodworking, hiking, downhill skiing, and spending lots of time on his boat – taking friends and family water skiing. He has also made fundraising an integral part of his life. Over the years he has been actively involved with the Lethbridge Community College Foundation, the University of Lethbridge Foundation, and is currently with the Lethbridge Community Foundation.
Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Education 7 As the faculty’s first associate dean of Rural & Regional Affairs, one of his roles is to identify and represent rural needs to the Faculty of Medicine and to help the faculty provide service to rural communities. His guiding principle: “Let’s open the doors for communicating our needs and hopes and put our shoulders to the wheel collectively.” Working collaboratively with the teaching and medical communities across Alberta, Myhre and his Northern counterpart, Dr. Jill Konkin, who heads up U of A’s Rural and Regional Health initiative, will build a province-wide network of health care resources, professionals, and infrastructure to address the needs of physicians working in rural communities. In cooperation with the medical faculty, they will develop new admissions and curricular policies that will encourage young people from rural communities to apply to medical school and that will see more young doctors take their practices to rural settings. One of the best ways to prepare physicians for the challenges of rural practice is to train them in a rural setting. Plans for new distant learning programs, continuing medical education programs, a database of rural residency placements, upgrades to rural clinics to make them suitable for teaching and learning are in the works. Myhre brings an impressive portfolio of knowledge and experience to the job. Working with Hinton physician Dr. Hugh Hindle, Myhre established RPAP’s Alberta Rural Family Medicine Network (ARFM) in 2000, a program that helps place young family doctors in rural settings for their residencies. As inaugural unit directors for Rural Alberta South (RAS) and Rural Alberta North (RAN) respectively, Myhre and Hindle, worked collaboratively to build relationships between the teaching universities and the rural and regional medical communities of Alberta. “I was guided by a desire for medical students and universities to know of the good quality medicine practiced in rural Alberta, and for physicians, working in these communities, to know that universities will respond to their needs,” says Myhre. “Doug’s experience as Rural Alberta South (RAS) unit director and community physician brings an important level of credibility to the position,” says RPAP program manager David Kay. “He has a talent for translating the needs of the community to the university which is essential as we seek to fortify medical resources in rural Alberta.” Building strong partnerships between urban and rural medical communities is pivotal to the success of the ARFM initiative, which has placed 60 per cent of its graduate family doctors in rural communities to date. Dr. Sarah Makhdoom, a graduate of the first RAS class, is now a family physician in High River. She credits Myhre for her decision to set up practice in rural Alberta. “Doug made life so pleasant for us residents,” she recalls. “He was always approachable and respectful. And he is the consummate promoter – promoting us to rural Alberta and promoting rural Alberta to us.” In the race to attract more young doctors like Makhdoom to rural sites, Myhre literally keeps a foot in two worlds – in the city and in the country. It makes for a hectic pace. His week begins with a Sunday drive from Lethbridge to Calgary followed by two full days at U of C. “I have only two days here so I work like a tornado and then let everyone have five days to recover before I return,” says Myhre. Then he’s back south to see patients at the Haig Clinic in Lethbridge and to spend time with his daughters. It’s an intense schedule but Myhre believes his foothold in rural Alberta gives him credibility in his new position, which, in turn, helps him build trust in the rural communities. For now, Myhre gazes out at the moving tableau of construction that surrounds him. Later, this Tuesday afternoon, he will pack up his briefcase and head off for the coulees of Lethbridge. “I enjoy the buzz of the urban environment but feel a much stronger connection to the land. I hold the highest regard for green spaces – prairie or mountain – and the physicians and people who live and work there.” Ta r r a n t S c h o l a r s h i p at t r a c t s yo u n g d o c to r s to r u r a l p r a c t i c e The Alberta Medical Association annually awards two Alberta medical students with the prestigious Tarrant Scholarship, the largest medical school undergraduate award in the province. Named in honour of the late Dr. Michael Tarrant, a family physician from Calgary who championed rural medical education in Alberta, the scholarship awards a full year’s tuition to a medical student at U of A and U of C who demonstrate an interest in practicing medicine in rural Alberta. Ryan Tooby, a third-year medical student at U of C, won a 2005 Tarrant Scholarship, worth $12,788, and Graeme Bishop of U of A received a $10,886 scholarship. He firmly believes that individuals earning a living in a given community have the responsibility to give back to the people in some way, be it through volunteer work or monetary donations.
Page 1 and 2: Your Faculty A Faculty of Medicine
Page 3 and 4: Contents Vol 2 Issue 1 / Fall 2005
Page 5 and 6: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 New Initia
Page 7: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Research 5
Page 11 and 12: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Service to
Page 13 and 14: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Internatio
Page 15 and 16: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Alumni Pro
Page 17 and 18: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Our People
Page 19 and 20: Your Faculty / Fall 2005 Our People

Your Faculty / Fall 2005 - Faculty of Medicine - University of Calgary

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