| Newfoundland and Labrador RepresentativeAndrew Hunt, BSc (Hons), MD, CCFP - EmailTwillingate, Newfoundland and LabradorAs a born and bred rural Newfoundland and Labradorian, Dr. Andrew Hunt is proud of his roots. Having returned to his hometown to practice rural family and emergency medicine for ten years, Dr. Hunt brings a strong, rural voice to patient advocacy, physician quality improvement, and social accountability through his role as Chief of Staff for Rural Health within his Regional Health Authority. Through research, scholarship, and innovation, Dr. Hunt strives to optimize medical education in the province and beyond with collaborative efforts from Memorial University and its partners as the Faculty of Medicine’s Assistant Dean of Distributed Medical Education. |
Newfoundland and Labrador
Educational initiatives include the MedQuest program that exposes high school students to the medical school and Lab Quest to Labrador students to health care careers. Memorial University provides preferential scoring for students who did schooling in rural communities.
Medical Resident Bursary Program
The Medical Resident Bursary Program provides bursaries to medical residents who agree to provide service in a specific community in Newfoundland and Labrador upon obtaining full-licensure. The medical resident bursary is thirty-six (36) months. The following table shows the medical resident bursary amounts by community level. Community levels increase from Level 0 (Labrador) to Level 3 (major towns and cities) based on level of rural location and remoteness.
|
Recipient |
Amount |
Community Level |
|
Specialist Resident |
$90,000 |
0 |
|
$70,000 |
1 |
|
|
$60,000 |
2 |
|
|
$50,000 |
3 |
|
|
Family Medicine Resident |
$90,000 |
0 |
|
$70,000 |
1 |
|
|
$60,000 |
2 |
|
|
$50,000 |
3 |
Provincial Physician Bursary Program
There is a 20% bonus on fee for service work in rural hospitals. Salaried physicians have a retention bonus since 2000 with varying amounts depending on GP or other specialties, duration of service and rurality. For GP's in 2006 it ranges from $2,500 for Category 3 rural after a year to $30,000 for Category 1 Rural after 3 years of service. Specialists in the same communities would get $4,000 to $36,000 respectively.
Things have improved since an agreement in 2003 that nominally has the province at 95% of Atlantic parity in 2006. Contact the NLMA for evolving details: nlma@nlma.nl.ca
The provincial and territorial representatives to Council are elected as per the bylaws. Please share information, questions and concerns with your respective representative. The outcome will come back to you via the rural news, this website, the RuralMed mailing list, or directly via your representative. If you feel you have something to contribute, let us know!