About 40 people have applied for two vacant medical residencies in Owen Sound.
The two-year residencies will begin in July, and two more residencies will open up in July 2012.
Doctor Elyse Savaria says this is the result of a new rural family medicine partnership between the city and McMaster University.
Doctor Savaria and Doctor Anne Louise McArthur will supervise the residents during their time in Owen Sound.
Doctor Savaria attended Owen Sound council on Monday night with Michele Mannerow — the Chair of the city’s family physician recruitment committee.
The doctor says it’s exciting that so many new doctors have applied for the program, for which interviews will be held in January.
Mannerow agrees and adds the goal is to convince these residents to stay on and open up their own practices once their two years are over.
She says that, for now, convincing doctors to practise here is a challenge because Owen Sound is no longer deemed medically underserviced by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
That means there are no provincial dollars available to help recruit physicians.
But Mannerow says the construction of a new medical clinic along the west harbourfront is a recruiting tool and will be even more so once it’s finished and open in the fall of 2011.
