The number of Canadians who visit emergency departments across the country only to give up and leave before they receive any care has increased more than fivefold, according to new data collected by CTV News.
Urban and rural can be quite different. Urban family docs can do mostly clinic, so a fairly regular 8-5 with maybe some evenings, because other people provide the other medical services.
A typical week for a rural family doc in my experience would be clinic about 3 days, maybe 9-3 seeing patients, but actually 8-6 because you have to round on your hospital inpatients first and have paperwork after seeing patients.
Another day would be a 24 hour ER shift, where you’re seeing 60 patients because there aren’t enough resources for a walk-in, some with a stubbed toe, some trying their best to die. You might get an hour or two to sleep if you’re lucky. You’d often take the day after to recover, but it’s not uncommon to get phone calls during the day from consults and such, so not really a great sleep.
On top of this, you can be on obstetrics call on your clinic days (or weekends) so if there’s a baby to deliver, you’re up, either delaying your clinic or keeping you working into the night. There’s a fair bit of communication needed even when the doc isn’t needed in the hospital, so your sleep is shit again.
Essentially, rural family docs do nearly everything in their service area and only the most serious stuff gets sent out. With an antiquated part of the bylaws of the College of Family Physicians saying family physicians must always be available for their patients, rural physicians get fucked around, while urban docs have the luxury of dedicated 24-7 ER to take care of that.
ER docs on the other hand, at least from the ones I know in Regina, have usually a rotating 8 hour (sometimes 10 or 12) shift over a few days. So you’d work an afternoon, evening, then night shift three days in a row, then have a day or two off. Patients seen can be less because of better family physician and minor ER access, but the main thing is that when you’re done your shift, you’re done. You aren’t going to get a call from a consult, or lab, or a request to do or assist in a procedure like a c-section. You can turn your brain off of work mode and not dread the sound of your phone’s ringtone.
