The L.E.A.F. Initiative is a Commonwell program to support capacity, resiliency and growth in the communities we call home.

CKL Family Medicine Residency Program

10 Angeline Street North LindsayK9V 4M8

What is this project about?

Kawartha Lakes Health Care Initiative (KLHCI) is spearheading the establishment of a full-time Family Medicine Residency program in the City of Kawartha Lakes (CKL). Such full-time programs have proven to be a successful recruitment tool for communities that train Family Medicine Residents. KLHCI, working alongside Queen’s University, is currently exploring whether it is feasible to have an independent, full-time Family Medicine Residency program in CKL, or to serve as a satellite site for the established Queen’s Peterborough-Kawartha (PK) and/or Queen’s Oshawa/Bowmanville/Lakeridge (QBOL) programs. Queen’s Family Medicine Residents would train for 2-3 years in CKL. While training, these Family Medicine Residents would learn from and provide primary care support to CKL citizens through family physicians, emergency medicine physicians, hospitalist physicians and other specialists within the community.

Why is this project important to the community?

Over the past 2-3 years, numerous local family physicians have retired or changed their scope of practice. A Family Medicine Residency program would provide primary care support to community family physicians, as well as RMH specialists, as part of their training. Upon completion of the Family Medicine Residency program, KLHCI’s goal would be to retain these now fully-licensed family physicians to practice within CKL. Statistics demonstrate that seventy-five to eighty percent (75-80%) of Family Medicine Residents remain in the communities in which they have trained; either as family physicians or by providing hospitalist and/or emergency care within the local hospital. In addition to having the new family physicians provide much needed primary care within a community, these physicians also create a city-wide financial stimulus of $500,000-$1,000,000* per year (i.e., hiring of office staff, purchasing of office supplies, property taxes, local purchasing of commodities, etc.). CKL currently needs 15-18 family physicians to provide local primary care to all citizens. KLHCI strongly believes that a recognized Rural Family Medicine Residency Program will make a significant difference to the recruitment and retention of family physicians to CKL over the next few years. *Source: Rural Ontario Medical Program (www.romponline.com)