St. Thomas

Population: 36,000

Affiliated Hospital: St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital

Description of Elective

Our department is accepting applications for summer locums for this year.  In the past few years our department has always had at least one or two new EM graduates locum with our group.  Many of these people, including myself, have subsequently joined the group as associate or active members.  Our group is very supportive of new graduates and I think you will find our hospital a non-intimidating place to work with excellent back-up resources.  I have included some information about our group since not all of you have rotated through our hospital.  I hope you find this information helpful and should you have any interest in working with us this summer or potentially longer term please feel free to contact me.

We are a dynamic group of emergency physicians and we pride ourselves on our collegial atmosphere. Our department has approximately 35,000 patient encounters per annum.  There is emergency physician double coverage for 14 hours a day.  We have an excellent group of back up consultants in the areas of internal medicine, anaesthesia, paediatrics, radiology, general surgery, thoracics, orthopaedics, obstetrics and gynecology, oral maxillary facial surgery, ENT, ophthalmology, and urology.  In general, these consultant services are available 24/7.  In addition we have a twelve bed ICU that has multiple ventilator care capabilities.  For tertiary care services such as neurosurgery, we have excellent working relationships with the London Health Sciences Centre.  We are fortunate to have a high quality CT scanner that is also available 24/7.

The greatest asset to our emergency department physician group is its sense of family.  We hold department meetings once a month and also meet once a month for education nights.  Education nights are hosted at department member's homes and are catered. We are actively involved in teaching and research.  We typically supervise 2-4 CCFP and CCFP EM residents per month as well as medical students.  We feel there is a nice balance of shifts with and without residents.  Many of department members are involved in research and our entire group participated in the Canadian CT Head Rule Study.  The majority of our emergency department physicians have obtained their EM designation from the CCFP.  Some members of our department are also examiners for the CCFP EM exams.  Each year some of our members get together with new EM graduates to do mock oral exams to prepare them for thier upcoming exams. We all have academic appointments with the University of Western Ontario.

Our department was the first emergency department in the country to have obtained 100% CEUS Independent Practitioner  (IP) status for ultrasound in the emergency department.  Many of our members have become Master Instructors and travel across the province teaching ED ultrasound.  We are now one of four national training sites for medical doctors who wish to obtain their IP status. Active and associate members are treated equally.  We are paid by an AFA agreement and choose to pay an equal base rate to everyone regardless of the shift worked.  All members do a proportionately equal amount of weekdays/weekends and days/afternoons/evenings/nights. Shadow billings, non-OHIP patients, and WSIB patients are all billed on top of the AFA base rate.  Our hourly rate is similar to most tertiary care centres. St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital is located about twenty minutes south of London and about ten minutes from the shores of Lake Erie at Port Stanley.  The majority of our department members live in one of these three communities.  There are excellent recreational activities, entertainment, and restaurants within this region. I hope this information provides you with a better idea of what it is like to be a member of our St. Thomas Emergency Department physician group.  I would be happy to discuss any further questions you may have.  In addition I would happy to tour you around our department and community.

Contact Information

James Menlove MD, CCFP-EM
Chief of Emergency Department & Anaesthesia Department Member
St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital