Iqaluit (July 31/06) - With only about 10 full-time doctors based in Nunavut, medical experts are looking at different ways to attract new physicians.

One idea that Sandy Macdonald, who has been Nunavut's director of medical affairs for the past five years, has looked at is to get Nunavummiut into medical school. A program similar in structure to the Nunavut-based Akitsiraq law initiative may be an option, Macdonald noted.

At full capacity, Nunavut would employ 21 general practitioners. Due to vacancies - most of them in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet - only 15 or 16 of those positions are occupied. About half of the jobs are being filled by locums, doctors on temporary contract from the south.

Throw in a surgeon, an anaesthetist and the director of medical affairs and Nunavut has 24 funded doctors' positions for approximately 30,000 residents. However, that's still fewer than the crude Canadian average of 100 doctors per 100,000 people.

Nunavut presents doctors with challenges that are exciting and extremely demanding.

But without relief, those rigours quickly drain physicians of their desire to carry on, and they depart all too soon.

That means more short-term doctors who often don't get a well-rounded view of their patients when trying to understand their medical needs.

"That's not the kind of care that we think is ideal," conceded Alain Pavilanis, past president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC).

It's a significant obstacle that the Government of Nunavut is facing. Executives from the College of Family Physicians of Canada learned of that first hand while visiting with doctors in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet recently.

"People can work only so much before they burn out," said Louise Nasmith, president of the CFPC. "You can only keep up a certain pace for so long."

While recognizing that attracting doctors is a challenge in many areas of Canada, Pavilanis and Nasmith said forming a Northern chapter of CFPC could be of benefit to Nunavut. A 17,000-member advocacy group, CFPC could promote to medical school students the unique learning opportunities Nunavut can offer, said Nasmith.

Macdonald said he's working on a model whereby a doctor would only have to work one out of four weekends. That would help convince more doctors to make their homes in Nunavut, he said.