Amid family doctor shortage, eight Group Health Centre MDs receive thanks, certificates for their work

Eight Group Health Centre (GHC) family physicians were honoured by the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) with Certificates of Recognition for exceptional dedication to patient care at The Water Tower Inn Thursday afternoon.

The recognition is based on written words of praise from patients who shared with OCFP through social media how their doctors have provided them or family members with empathy and often life-saving medical care.

GHC family doctors honoured Thursday with certificates of recognition from OCFP are:

• Dr. Megan Culina
• Dr. Adrianna Schamp
• Dr. Win Yan Chung
• Dr. Peter Maione
• Dr. Victoria Murdoch
• Dr. Carolyn Kuntz
• Dr. Blair Jarrett
• Dr. Christopher Bruni

“It’s an honour to be acknowledged. I’m humbled. It’s becoming more common for patients to express their thanks for having a family physician,” said Dr. Blair Jarrett in an interview with SooToday.

A St. Mary’s College graduate, Jarrett earned his undergraduate degree from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, then his medical degree from Saba University in the Caribbean. After completing his residency at Queen's University in 2015 he returned to his hometown and has practiced family medicine at GHC for the past nine years.

Jarrett, a married father of two daughters, has a full-time practice at GHC with a roster of 1,700 patients, also working as a hospitalist at Sault Area Hospital and caring for elderly patients at FJ Davey Home.

“It was my passion for the sciences that led me to think about a career in the health-care field. I like family medicine because it encompasses newborns all the way through to the elderly and everyone in between,” Jarrett said.

“It definitely is a challenging field compared to specialty work. Family medicine involves taking time to really learn about your patients, to gain that experience and knowledge that is required. It probably took me five or six years to get to know my patients, to feel like I’m providing the best service I can.”

Jarrett said that a doctor can get attached to his patients, sometimes wondering in after work hours if they are well.

“That’s almost a weekly or daily occurrence. You definitely get to know them well and that relationship that you create with them adds to the level of care you’re providing. If patients have bad outcomes or are unwell it’s definitely something that you are thinking about when you go home at five o’clock. You deal with that by doing the best you can when you’re looking after them, utilizing your skills to the best of your ability.

“The biggest reward for me is the relationships you form with patients and seeing how much your care can impact them and seeing the gratitude that they, most times, will express. That’s the biggest joy that I get out of practicing,” Jarrett said.

The Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) represents more than 18,000 family physicians and medical students, including residents, retired family physicians, and more than 15,000 who are working in communities providing care to patients.

“We really wanted to hear from patients about how they felt about their family doctors so we asked one simple question. We asked ‘what inspires you most about your family doctor?’ and over 750 people responded on social media across the province,” said Deepy Sur, Ontario College of Family Physicians CEO.

Sur said OCFP will be aiming to recognize doctors in visits to other communities for the words of appreciation they received.

“This is a chance to thank our physicians for the work they do every day. We know it’s a tough job and they work long hours and they care about their communities and patients. We want them to see the value of their work. We know more needs to be done and we keep advocating for good supports in primary care but today is a good news story, to honour family doctors from the patients’ point of view.

“Dr. Jarrett is an amazing and caring doctor. He’s been so great with my aging mom. If she has a problem he listens to her and tries to help her in any way he can. He’s very thoughtful and caring with her,” a patient of Jarrett’s wrote.

“We’re very proud of our family doctors and the work that they do,” said Dr. Jodie Stewart, Algoma District Medical Group CEO and chair at Thursday’s event.

There are 30 family doctors currently practicing at GHC.

“It’s an excellent day,” said Lil Silvano, GHC president and CEO.

Thursday’s event came at a time when thousands of GHC patients have been de-rostered, losing access to their family doctors.

The shortage is linked to retirements and young medical school students shying away from family medicine due in part to heavy loads of paperwork family doctors must complete after regular business hours.

It has been suggested by health 2care professionals and observers that the establishment of family health care teams - including individuals assigned to complete paperwork - would improve the troubled system, attracting and retaining more physicians to family medicine.

“It would be ideal if you could offload some of that paperwork and have someone else take over some of that. The paperwork burden has increased over the last several years,” Jarrett said.            

Jarrett said GHC physicians are carrying on and trying to keep up their morale despite the state of turmoil in family medicine, not only in Sault Ste. Marie but across Ontario and Canada.

“As a member of that group (GHC) it’s important to remember you’re a team and focus on your practice while looking at ways that the group can modify its current practices to better serve the community,” said Jarrett, estimating he spends five to 10 hours of time on paperwork.

“We have been able to recruit two primary care nurse practitioners as well as a nurse practitioner who’s working in pediatrics so we’re being able to roster unattached babies and we have been able to re-roster about 800 patients to date. We’re working with the Sault Ste. Marie Physician Recruitment and Retention program. We’re on it,” Silvano said.

Sault MPP Ross Romano - in attendance at Thursday's gathering - announced over $2.8 million in funding in May to support a new Group Health Centre outpatient clinic called the Access Care Clinic (ACC) located at 170 East Street in Sault Ste. Marie. The ACC is one of several measures undertaken to provide continued access to care for up to 11,200 GHC patients who lost access to their primary care provider on or after May 31, 2024.

“It’s been a challenging year. Thank you for the work you do,” Romano told the group of GHC doctors.