This Labrador hospital is hoping to train the next generation of rural doctors

Labrador's central hospital is fully staffed and doctors hope to never be in a dire staffing shortage again thanks to a teaching program bringing in six physician residents each year. 

While the program isn't perfect, the staff at the Labrador Health Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay say their focus on life outside of the hospital helps draw in future doctors to consider a life in rural and remote locations throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. 

"It's not just the nine-to-five … it's also the community, it's also the coast," said Dr. Robert Forsey. "So that's part of building an attraction to the place."

Towns throughout Newfoundland and Labrador face physician shortages. Emergency rooms are temporarily closing and doctor's offices shuttered due to a lack of staff. It's a situation the staff at the Labrador Health Centre are too familiar with.

In the 1980s, Happy Valley-Goose Bay was in desperate need of doctors, Forsey said. 

"We were more or less in free fall because we were losing doctors left, right and centre," Forsey said. 

Dr. Michael Jong was teaching a program in St. John's when he had the idea to develop a rural academic teaching site in Labrador. The program was created with Memorial University and Labrador-Grenfell Health and launched in 1991. 

"You would open their eyes to it," Forsey said. "Some of them are going to like it and they're going to come back, which is really what happened."

Locally called the NorFam program, it has grown to a two-year residency program that accepts six resident doctors each year, and 12 total at a time. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services said over the past five years the program has gotten an average of 146 applications annually.

The Canadian Resident Matching Service allows students to apply for an unlimited amount of programs and rank them to their preference. It then pairs the six most compatible students to the Labrador program. 

Dozens of doctors have stayed on either for their entire careers, for multiple years or as a locum following the two-year training. Forsey said he believes it's because they do things differently in the remote Labrador location when compared to elsewhere in Canada. 

The program combines simulations, emergency room shifts, obstetrics and outpatient clinic practice but is unique in focusing on supporting doctors outside of the hospital, Forsey said.

Residents spend time outdoors with local people, camp during the winter, hunt on snow machines and learn about the Labrador Innu and Inuit cultures.