Ode to the north

I chose to go back to my small home town of North Bay, Ontario, and complete an elective through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) at the end of my elective summer so that I could truly appreciate the Northern healthcare system from the perspective of an 'experienced' medical student. I would never have guessed how fulfilling my four weeks would be. Before starting this rural Canadian elective, I had already experienced family medicine in rural and urban settings in Ireland, and urban settings in Canada. The experiences throughout both systems were very similar. The emphasis in these settings was on clinic-based care, health promotion and preventive medicine, and outpatient management of acute and chronic illnesses. For this reason, I was quite confused when the first day of my elective in Northern Ontario started with a tour of the North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC) instead of the family medicine clinic. At that time, I was unaware of the unique alternative responsibilities that family physicians in Northern Ontario have outside of their clinic duties.