Dr. Rani Beharry grew up and was educated in Toronto, obtained a masters in England, attended medical school in Ireland and completed her internship in the United States.
On Jan. 11, she started her new job as chief of complex continuing care and rehabilitation at Georgian Bay General Hospital’s Penetanguishene site.
“This is a wonderful place,” Beharry said, adding she spent many weekends as a child in Collingwood. “I know Georgian Bay, and I love it.”
Another medical professional who knows this area well is Dr. McKenzie Blake, a Midland native who is due to return in the summer of 2011 to start a new practice.
While Midland and Penetanguishene will have to wait about a year-and-a-half for Blake to arrive, Beharry is already busy seeing patients. In just two weeks, she said, she has already noticed the impact the local physician shortage has had on the population, especially elderly, chronically ill patients.
“It saddens me that these people don’t have doctors,” she said. “They need more help than I can offer alone.”
Mostly based in Penetanguishene, Beharry will also serve rotations in the intensive-care unit at the Midland hospital. She said she hopes her expertise in geriatrics, the care of the elderly, will be of benefit to the community.
“With my training, there’s a lot I can bring here,” she said. “This area did not have an officially trained geriatrician before I arrived.”
While some doctors might see a job in Midland or Penetanguishene as a stepping stone, Beharry said she plans on establishing roots here.
“This is going to be a long-term commitment for me,” she said. “I like the area, and there are some wonderful things about living in a … less urban area.”
Beharry added she would eventually like to spearhead new outreach and education programs aimed at helping seniors learn how to prevent illness and injury.
Blake, meanwhile, is currently completing her family medicine residency program through McMaster University. She is working in Collingwood and filling the odd emergency shift in Midland.
When Blake arrives, she will likely be doing family medicine and emergency department work, but she has not committed to joining any particular practice as of yet.
David Gravelle of the Southern Georgian Bay Physician Recruitment Task Group said he is excited at the prospect of having someone who knows the area return to practise and call it home once again.
“She’s local, her husband is local, they got married in our community last September, and they’re going to set up roots here,” he said. “That’s just an amazing gift to our community that someone wants to come back. We don’t have to sell them on much.”
The two new doctors are welcome, suggested Gravelle, but the region’s physician shortage is far from solved. According to the task group, an estimated 8,000 area residents do not have a family doctor.
– With files from Nicole Million
