Society news: conference highlights [CJRM

Society news: conference highlights

CJRM 1998;3(3):157-58

The SRPC sixth annual rural and remote area conference was held in St. John's in early May and was, by all accounts, a great success. The executive met before the conference began and, among other business, endorsed Eugene Leduc's on-call paper (see page 139) as a discussion paper to get everyone talking about the problems rural doctors have with on call. Tuesday, the SRPC held its day-long policy session, which focussed on the role of nurse practitioners in Canada's health care system (see page 159). Wednesday, the SRPCs 3rd annual National Rural Critical Care (NRCC) Course (see CJRM 1997;2[3]:143 [full text] for history of the course) was held at the Medical School at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The hands-on course has become so popular that the 40 lucky registrants who took the course signed up long before the conference. Unfortunately many other doctors had to be turned away. Once again, in keeping with the SRPC belief that rural doctors learn best from their rural peers, all of the faculty teaching the NRCC courses were rural docs with a special interest in their subject.

The SRPC's annual general meeting was opened by Ms. Sally Rutherford, executive director, Canadian Federation of Agriculture. She spoke about how to keep rural doctors in the area and how many of the needs of rural doctors are similar to those of all rural residents -- quality medical care, quality education and the need to no longer be undervalued. The evening saw the changing of the guard as Dr. Keith MacLellan of Shawville, Que., handed over the presidency to Dr. Patricia Vann of Dryden Ont. Dr. Fred French of Norris Point, Nfld., stepped down as vice-president and Dr. Neil Leslie of Revelstoke, BC, stepped in. Dr. Ken Babey of Mount Forest, Ont., remains as secretary and Dr. Simon Goodall of Mount Forest, Ont., as treasurer. Secretary-elect is Dr. Robert Martel of Dartmouth, NS, and treasurer-elect is Dr. Ian Park of Whitney by, Ont. Lee Teperman of Charteris, Que., has replaced John Clark as administrative officer. Membership in the Society, which costs $200, has more than doubled since last year's conference, but we are still only in the 3 figures (500 and growing at last count in April) and need to continue to grow to help finance all the committee work that the SRPC is doing on behalf of rural doctors in Canada. The projected deficit is about $13 000 on a total budget of $122 000. Members are our life blood, volunteering for the committees and, through their dues, funding the committees' work. If you are not a member, please join and convince a friend to join (see carrier card insert with this issue for application form).

The SRPC has 5 regional committees: North/West, chaired by Dr. Stuart Johnson; Central, chaired by David O'Neil; Ontario, chaired by Dr. Peter Hutten-Czapski; Quebec, chaired by Dr. Maurice Lamarche; and Atlantic, chaired by Dr. Robert Martel. Each region gave a short synopsis: In the North/West, rural doctors are cut off from much of what goes on in government. They communicate through the media. Johnson says there are 15% fewer rural doctors than there were 4 years ago. There is a mass exodus now. In Johnson's own community of 23 physicians he says 8 are thinking of leaving. The British Columbia Medical Association is strongly supporting rural doctors in BC as is the SRPC executive. The Atlantic region meets via teleconference and email as do most of the SRPC committees, for obvious reasons (see page 149 for a full report of what is happening in the Atlantic region). Ontario region has been doing much of its work via email and is working with the Professional Association of Internes and Residents of Ontario (PAIRO) on a rural blueprint. The Central and Quebec regions are just starting up.

The SRPC now has 11 active standing committees: Obstetrics; Emergency; Anesthesia; CME; Working Conditions; Specialties; Student/Resident; Communication; Rural Community Economics; Finance; Memberships and Nominations. Four other standing committees stand alone, looking for volunteers to take them up: Annual Meeting; Aboriginal Issues; Spousal/Family; and Allied Health Care. The chairs of the active committees gave their reports.

Dr. Hal Irvine, Anesthesia Committee, says that forging links with the Canadian Anaesthetists' Society is going to be difficult. We need to hear from rural anesthetists, and it could be useful to have a specialist anesthetist on the committee to serve as a bridge he says.

Dr. Graham Dodd, Emergency Committee, says that their first big project is to provide a rural focus to the national triage scale "coming soon to Canada" as put forward by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP).

Dr. Stuart Iglesias of the highly active Obstetrics Committee (see CJRM 1998;3[2] [full text] for policy on obstetrics spearheaded by this group) says that the future of special skills is endangered and there is a fear that "rural medicine will be left to become a combination of triage and public health." We need to reclaim these specialist skills and we need a national training program for teaching advanced obstetrics he says. Iglesias organized a special skills night at the conference and CJRM will publish the proceedings in a future issue.

Dr. Eugene Leduc, the only member of the Working Committee until the AGM, produced the discussion paper on on-call policy (see page 139 of this issue).

Dr. John Wootton, scientific editor of CJRM said that a contract has been signed between the CMA and SRPC to publish CJRM and that the feedback on the journal has been very positive. (Judging by the number of change of address cards sent to us, doctors are not only reading it but missing it when it doesn't arrive at their new address!)

The AGM ended with 2 honorary rural doctor awards being handed out to Dr. André Lalonde (in absentia) and Dr. Michael Klein. Our new president, Dr. Patricia Vann, presented outgoing president, Dr. Keith Maclellan, and outgoing vice-president, Dr. Fred French, with gifts (see future cover of CJRM!) for their significant contributions to rural medicine.

Thursday and Friday belonged to the conference proper: 2 days filled with workshops, lectures and hands-on practice. Between workshops, conference participants were able to browse through the many booths set up outside the conference rooms (including an SRPC/CJRM booth) and in "The Clinic," which housed 30 exhibits on technology in health and education. The Women in Rural Medicine luncheon, now a conference fixture, was successful, being attended by some 50 women.

The only complaint heard at the conference was that there was so much jam-packed into 4 short days, with all evenings booked, that some meetings of special interest groups had to be held at 7:00 a.m. Staying a day longer was no solution as many doctors had signed up for the ALARM's course held on the weekend to coincide with the rural conference. Plans are in the works to manufacture more time! If you missed it this year, plan for St. John's next year.