Community Visits
A full-time physician generally spends 5 days north in a four week period. Work in the northern nursing stations consists of pre-booked clinics, typically seeing patients every half hour. Between patient encounters, physicians perform various activities; dictations, complete forms and often field questions from nurses, who may also be seeing patients. Also, phone calls related to patient care specialist consultation, NIHS/travel issues, etc, are also completed. Physicans often do home visits for patients that cannot move outside of their home easily.
During the evening, various reviews are completed; patient charts for case management or in anticipation of the following day's patients, medication reviews and renewals are also completed. Community education, like local radio shows on health topics and nursing in-services also often happen after clinic hours. Any emergencies requiring physician input are attended throughout the entire time of the physican visit to the community.