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Northern and Rural Family Physicians in Ontario: Who are they and what do they do?
E.F. Wenghofer, R.W. Pong, and P.E. Timony
To have a true understanding of what a physician "does", consideration must be given to the types of patients they treat and the conditions under which they see them. Although there have been several recent descriptive reports on physician services in rural and northern Ontario, none has done so with the explicit purpose of evaluating differences in scope of practice between physicians in rural and northern Ontario and other regions of the province. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is the licensing and regulatory body of all physicians in Ontario. Its register contains verified demographic, credential and practice location information for all physicians in the province. Additionally, the CPSO surveys physicians on an annual basis, collecting data regarding some features of the practice organization, work load and clinical activities. Examining these data will enable a model of the scope of practice in the north to be developed.
Using CPSO data, this project aims to answer the following questions:
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1.
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Who are the GP/FPs of northern and rural Ontario?
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2.
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How do GP/FPs in northern and rural Ontario differ from those in other locations with respect to demographics, credentials, practice structure, proportion of time devoted to specific clinical activities, and practice patterns.
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3.
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Is rurality and/or northern practice location a significant predictor of GP/FP physicians accepting new patients into primary care practices?
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(funded by Laurentian University Research Fund Grant)
(Names in bold denote CRaNHR investigators and research staff.)
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