A Nova Scotia doctor can now apply to reinstate his medical licence after it was revoked in February.
Dr. Mohsen Yavari has a family medicine practice in Glace Bay, NS. He lost his licence earlier this year after the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia found that he had under-reported his qualifications to the college.
Dr. Yavari came to Canada in 2013 through the Clinician Assessment for Practice Program, to work as a family doctor in rural Nova Scotia.
On his program application, Dr. Yavari left out his six years as an Emergency Medicine Specialist in Dubai. He told the committee he had not shared the information on purpose.
Clinician Assessment for Practice Program
The Clinician Assessment for Practice Program was a provincial program used to recruit International Medical Graduates as general practitioners and family doctors to Nova Scotia.
Recruiting International Medical Graduates is common in Canada. The Canadian Medical Association says the “top five suppliers of physicians new to Canada” in 2012 were; South Africa (58), India (53), Libya (37), USA (36), and Pakistan (33).
Doctors in Nova Scotia
According to the Canadian Medical Association, Nova Scotia has the highest rate of doctors based on 100,000 population.
Source: Canadian Medical Association
Director of Strategic Partnerships at Doctors Nova Scotia, Kevin Chapman says, the rate of doctors in the province is “disproportionate” to the number of doctors actually seeing patients. He insists that Nova Scotia “absolutely” has a doctor shortage.
“Some folks would say we are ‘over doctored’,” says Chapman. “But we know there are a number of Nova Scotians without a family doctor and we still have long wait times for certain services.”
He says, doctors at IWK and QEII have Maritime, or Atlantic responsibilities and shouldn’t be included in the Canadian Medical Associations numbers. Chapman also points to physicians teaching at medical schools as misrepresenting the number of practicing doctors in the province.
Recruiting doctors to rural Nova Scotia
Head of Family Medicine of Western Zone for Nova Scotia Health Authority, Dr. Crystal Todd, says doctors in Nova Scotia tend to stay in urban areas.
“Recruiting has always been a problem for certain areas,” says Dr. Todd. “The more rural the area, the smaller the niche of people who are going to be attracted to that area.”
Chapman agrees with Dr. Todd.
He says Nova Scotia’s aging and disperse population creates its own challenges for recruiting doctors.
“Some doctors in rural areas have two, three, or four thousand patients,” says Chapman. “These are incredibly big practices that takes one and a half, or two people to fill the role after a doctor retires.”
Recruiting vs. retaining
Dr. Todd says recruitment isn’t the only challenge in rural Nova Scotia.
“In many areas of Nova Scotia it’s not recruitment that’s the problem, it’s actually retention,” she says.
Dr. Todd says the Nova Scotia Health Authority knows that what’s been done in the past to recruit doctors hasn’t worked.
“We’re not just plugging holes with bodies, so to speak,” says Todd. “We’re trying to have conversations with graduates and communities to find the right matches, because that will make retention significantly more successful than it has been.”
Chapman says the Clinician Assessment for Practice Program brought doctors, like Dr. Yavari, to parts of the province that had “challenges” recruiting.
Provincial program ends
The program ended in March 2015. According to the college’s website, the decision was “based upon the results of the program’s annual evaluation.”
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia declined to comment on why the program ended. A spokesperson redirected all questions to the group’s website and the Nova Scotia Health Authority.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority said it couldn’t comment on the program, because it was a program by the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Nova Scotia. A spokesperson suggested talking to the college.
The website mentions “new pan‐Canadian standards”, but the provincial program has not been replaced yet.