An image from the Sask. Medical Assocation’s Roadmap trip to Ile-a-la-Crosse in 2014. Photo courtesy Facebook, Sask. Medical Association.
If anyone gets injured out at Meadow Lake Provincial Park on Saturday, they’re in luck.
A group of medical students and family doctor residents will be practicing their wilderness medical skills in the park as part of a road trip organized by the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA).
The group from University of Saskatchewan will spend this weekend learning what it’s like to be a doctor in Meadow Lake from family physician Stephen Loden.
He moved there in 2012, and is one of 10 healthcare practitioners providing team-based care out of the Meadow Lake Primary Health Centre.
He said he views Meadow Lake as an exceptional community because he’s able to do a broad scope of medical procedures.
“Not only do we work in the clinic but we cover the emergency room, we deliver babies here, we work in the operating room, we do anesthesia and surgery as well. So that’s what drew a lot of us to practise in the community and it’s also what makes us such a good site for training students,” Loden said.
He also said the location of Meadow Lake, which serves a diverse representation of Saskatchewan’s population, is appealing.
“We’re rural but we’re not quite remote,” he said. “We’re right on the edge of the north so lots of lakes and parks and outdoor activities but also pretty good access to community services and were not too far away from bigger cities either.”
They’re set to tour the community, as well as eat supper in Dorintosh.
The Meadow Lake trip is one of four road trips scheduled this year under the SMA’s Roadmap Program.