-Covering emergency room duties not a problem: doctor-

OSOYOOS TIMES-February 27, 2008-

By Paul EverestrnOsoyoos Times

After growing up in the Philippines, going to medical school in Australia and moving to be with her family in Vancouver, Dr. Anna Tan has settled on Osoyoos as the community where she wants to practise medicine.
The community itself was really welcoming, she said in a telephone interview from Vancouver on Feb. 22. I felt really comfortable while I was there. There's all this fear of moving to a new place and a new job and a new country, new everything.
But it was diminished in a way. They were all nice and welcoming.rnTan said she made the decision to make the Osoyoos-Oliver area her home and place of work while visiting the communities with members of her family from Feb. 14 to 17. She told Glenn Mandziuk, executive director of Destination Osoyoos, on Feb. 19.
She sent me a note, Mandziuk said. She was very impressed with the hospitality of the community.rnBesides feeling welcomed during her visit to the area, Tan said she has decided to practise full time here because the rural setting offers the chance for a doctor to work in a hospital emergency room.
The practice, actually, is what really attracted me, the fact that I could do emergency medicine in the Oliver hospital, she said. That's a big selling point because I like emergency medicine.rnThe local medical community, Destination Osoyoos and the two towns were interested in Tan because she has the skills needed to work in a rural community, especially the ability to work in the emergency room of the South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver.
Having to cover clinic hours and emergency room shifts at the hospital is a requirement that has caused some physicians considering the area to shy away from moving and working here.
But Tan said such responsibilities never concerned her when she was making her decision.
I like the general practice, but being able to practise emergency medicine and keeping my skills intact is an added bonus.rnBefore moving to B.C. in August 2007, Tan went to medical school at the University of Adelaide in southern Australia and did a medical internship at Adelaide's Modbury Public Hospital before her general training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
She said coming from such large, urban care centres to a smaller, rural hospital will be the one thing that may take some getting used to.
So to go from an 800-bed hospital to an 18-bed hospital up in Oliver, some adjusting will be required, Tan said.
Tan is the second doctor recruited to the area in three months. In December, two South African doctors who are married said they are moving to the community. The husband will work full time and the wife plans to eventually practise here on a part-time basis.
As for a timeline of when Tan may arrive, she said that depends on how quickly she can complete all the paperwork she has to fill out in order to live and work here.
It's getting licensed on the temporary register of B.C., with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, she said. My parents and I are looking already at real estate there. Hopefully by the summer I'll be there.