Salesman succeeds in bringing MD recruits to BC

Maurice LeBlanc has already brought pharmacists to British Columbia from his native South Africa, and now he's doing the same thing with physicians.

LeBlanc, who has lived in Mackenzie, a town of 6000 in northern BC, for a decade, travelled to South Africa in 1999 to find pharmacists for his business. When 4 of the town's 5 family doctors left the town last winter, the former salesman approached Dr. Jennifer Rice, medical director of the Northern Interior Regional Health Board in Prince George, and offered to travel to South Africa to recruit FPs. He asked for $3000 to help defray his travel expenses; Rice, who was used to paying professional recruitment companies $7500 for each doctor they recruited, readily agreed.

LeBlanc was well aware that he had to be discreet during his visit because South Africa is opposed to recruiting of its doctors by foreigners. “You don't want to walk around with a poster saying ‘I’m here from Canada recruiting doctors.' It was easier as an individual to go there very quietly and work my way around.”

He did his homework carefully, building up a list of contacts and pinpointing the cities where he was most likely to find potential recruits. During the 3 weeks he met with 72 doctors and returned to Canada with 20 résumés of well-qualified candidates. Rice was “absolutely thrilled.”

Six of the doctors are currently going through official procedures to immigrate and will be coming to the region, and Rice is directing the others elsewhere. She predicts long-term benefits: “What I have now, through [LeBlanc], is a network of contacts so that when physicians decide they do want to move on, we will be able to replace them without these gaps in service, which make rural practice so difficult.”

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