Yarmouth Regional Hospital to test use of family practice anesthetists

Nova Scotia Health is launching a trial project later this year at Yarmouth Regional Hospital that officials hope will lead to more stabilized anesthesia services. Beginning in March, the site will host two family practice anesthetists, or FPAs, to augment surgical services.

FPAs are family doctors with additional training and certification in anesthesia that allows them to provide local and general anesthetics for cases that do not require a subspecialist. That means they would work on non-complex cases in general surgery, obstetricsand ophthalmology.

Yarmouth Regional, a site that has space for four anesthesiologists but has struggled for years to maintain more than two, seemed an ideal place to test the FPA, according to the medical executive director for the health authority's western zone.

"There is a co-ordinated effort to support this initiative," said Dr. Cheryl Pugh.

An added bonus is that both FPAs have connections to the Yarmouth area, she said.

"It just makes sense that we would try to support these individuals who are appropriately trained and have experience."

A national need

The FPAs will work for two months under the watch of a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada-certified anesthesiologist who is being brought in to oversee the trial.

Ifthe program is successful, administrators will also need todecide how theFPAs split their time between providing anesthesia services and seeing patients as general practitioners.

Although Yarmouth has been the site with achronic ongoing need for anesthesiologists, other hospitals across the province have experienced shortages, a reflection of demand outstripping the number of anesthesiologists trained and certified each yearCanada-wide.

Despite that reality, introducing the FPA role in Nova Scotia has been a challenge.

Challenges introducing FPAs here

Even then, the idea faced resistance because some surgical officials either did not support the use of the role or did not understand it. Pugh said the "gold standard" is for hospitals to have Royal College-certified anesthesiologists, but that isn't always possible due to the national shortage.

Many hospitals in Ontario, British Columbia and provinces in between have also decided it isn't always necessary. Sites in central and western provinces have long used FPAs in their operating rooms some exclusively for low-risk patient procedures.

The hope is that the project in Yarmouth will mean work can be shared among more doctors, improving work-life balanceand increasing access to elective surgeries.

Although the shortage of anesthesiologists can affect patients' access to surgical services, Pugh said prolonged shortages can also affect wheresurgeons choose to work.

"Obviously, they're dependent on a reliable anesthetist service."