ATHABASCA – Just as Athabasca welcomed one new doctor amid a mad dash to attract more to the region only a few weeks ago, another local physician, Dr. Michael J.W. Smith, has announced he will be putting down the stethoscope for good at the end of the year.
Dr. Smith has been hinting at retirement for a few years after a 50-year career as a physician, but announced last month he will officially be closing his practice at the Athabasca Professional Building Dec. 16, where he shares a clinic with Dr. Adekunle Ogunnupe and Dr. Ryan Schaub.
Smith finished his medical school training in Britain in 1971 and began practicing there until 1975 when he started work in Churchill, Manitoba, in 1975. By 1979, he moved to the Athabasca region and started working in Boyle, where he spent 15 years before coming to Athabasca.
“I will be issuing prescriptions to last up to six months or more depending on the type of medication,” Smith said in a recent notice to his patients, which was printed in the Advocate. “Patients are urged to find another doctor as soon as possible.”
However, he added, the current physicians in his clinic may not be able to accommodate new patients. He recommended trying Dr. Paras Shrestha who recently began to practice at the Family Health Centre.
“Alberta Health Services (AHS) have taken over physician recruitment. It is now virtually impossible for our clinic to initiate contact with a physician to join us,” Smith said.
Athabasca mayor Rob Balay thanked Dr. Smith for his long service to the community.
"Dr. Smith has served our community for a long time and he has every right to retire, and I thank him for all his years of service," he said.
In his recent monthly Town Talk: Live interview with the Advocate, Balay also shared that Dr. Paras Shrestha and his family moved to Athabasca in the middle of August and are “settling in nicely.”
“He’s working, he’s taking regular shifts in emerg … and he’s also taking new patients and working out of Dr. Leon Burger’s office at the Family Health Centre,” said Balay.
“So, that's very encouraging and our other doctor will be here in January, so that'll be another one. And then on top of that, as part of the RESIDE program, we hope to have a third doctor here next summer after they're done their practicum, so things are looking better.”
The Alberta government introduced the RESIDE (Rural Education Supplement and Integrated Doctor Experience) program earlier this year, to help rural communities attract physicians to begin their careers in smaller centres.
It is “designed to address challenges in patient access to physicians and health services in rural and remote areas of the province by supporting new-in-practice physicians to explore living and working in rural Alberta.”
The Town of Athabasca, Athabasca County and Village of Boyle recently formed Regional Health Care Attraction and Retention Committee (RHCARC) which includes elected officials and administrators from all three municipalities along with local doctors and members of the public, to help attract and retain physicians and other medical professionals to the region’s two hospitals in Athabasca and Boyle.
“I would like to thank everyone who has consulted me over the years and for their trust in me, my staff and my colleagues. My wife Evelyn and I offer our wishes. Good health to all. Take care,” Smith’s notice ends.
