A flux of physician retirements on the horizon is ensuring the urban-rural divide of doctor recruitment will be an issue for the foreseeable future. 

A total of 74 doctors have been hired in the Fredericton-area over a three-year period. After factoring in doctors retiring or moving away, it becomes a net growth of 29.

“It's going to be challenging because our population of family physicians are getting older. There will be more recruitments,” says Dr. Tom Peters, director of Fredericton’s Horizon Health Network Fredericton.

It’s a reality hitting rural areas hard.

“Rural physicians are getting older and retiring, and its harder to place people in rural areas,” says Dr. Peters.

Anthony Knight of the New Brunswick Medical Society says it’s traditionally been less challenging to recruit in urban areas.

“When we think about our rural communities and in particular some of our specialty care services that exist in small towns and our hospitals, it’s more and more difficult to recruit to those parts of the province,” he says.

At the end of October, about 22,000 people in New Brunswick were waiting for a family doctor – that's with about 90 more doctors working now compared to three year ago.

“We saw challenges with thoracic surgery earlier this year where we were in a real difficult situation and we collaborated closely with the regional health authorizes and the Department of Health to find a solution,” says Knight. 

The Dalhousie Medical School at the University of New Brunswick Saint John campus is credited with helping retain medical professionals.

“We have had the opportunity to train a lot of them,” says Dr. Peters. “That's why the medical school has been such a great help to us.”

For Dr. Sara Davidson, the decision to make Fredericton her home as a general practitioner came down to quality of life.

“My criteria at the time was that I sort of needed to have the cafes and things I'd like, and then see a moose in about five minutes so this seemed to strike a fine balance between the two,” she says.

Dr. Davidson hopes to help break the stigma around family medicine.

“I'd be telling people visiting from other locations coming to our school that I was second assist overnight in a bunch of C-sections,” she says., “or even first assist for a couple emergency ones, and they never heard of anyone getting that much access as a medical student.”

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Nick Moore.