Psych Job Market in Eastern Ontario

[Dr. JJ]

Hello all,

I don't know about you all, but I find it difficult to find reliable info about what the actual job market post-residency is like in any given area. Seems like the best way to get this info is to be well-connected to people already practicing in the field, which is difficult when ranking programs across the country.

I am trying to get a sense of whether there is a need for, or rather a glut of, psychiatrists in Eastern Ontario,  before deciding how to rank Queen's and Ottawa. I have heard that there isn't much need in Southern Ontario, which causes some anxiety for future earnings, but I don't know:

1) whether that includes Ottawa, or is just the GTA really?

2) whether,  if it includes Ottawa, it also includes Kingston? 

3) whether,  if it also includes Kingston,  it also includes smaller Eastern Ontario cities, such as Brockville, Belleville,  Cornwall, Smith's Falls, etc?

Basically,  for family reasons, if I move to Eastern Ontario I will want to stay there to work after residency. So any insight on whether the prospects of psychiatry work in that area are good would be quite helpful.

Thanks in advance!

-JJ

[rice]

I'm not sure about academic jobs in Ottawa/Kingston, but from what I've heard from a friend who is an R5 currently looking at that market, all of the smaller cities you listed have a huge need for psychiatry and you will have your choice of jobs at almost any of the community hospitals, especially if you do residency at Queen's/Ottawa but even so if you train anywhere else and want to come back for family reasons.

[NeuroD]

Insider info for Kingston: two of the psych doc's with the largest outpatient pools are retiring in the next year or two. Demand is about to skyrocket around Kingston.

[ellorie]

There is a need for psychiatrists all across Ontario including the big cities. You might not be able to get your dream job at the hospital of your choice but at worst you can rent an office and build a practice almost anywhere fairly easily and at best, it really isn’t hard to get a hospital job somewhere, though I can’t speak to those areas specifically. 

[Dr. JJ]

Thank you all for your posts. Full disclosure: the person who told me that the Southern Job market was saturated was practicing way up north, so perhaps that limited their perception.

A certain amount of flexibility would not be a problem at all. More a fear of moving the family to Ottawa or Kingston for five years, seeing the kid get settled in school and the spouse settled in work, and then "Whoops; we have to move 5 hours away for me to work!"

I understand that things like this can't be guaranteed 5 years in advance, either; just trying to gather the best intelligence to make the most intelligent rank list.

Thanks again!

-JJ

[LostLamb]

I think the southern Ontario you speak of is essentially GTA. 

there’s lots of work everywhere else. 

Im from the eastern Ontario area but didn’t move back for a couple reasons, one being that in Ottawa I worried about needing to have some French fluency as a resident (not as staff...you have more flexibility there) because of the proximity to the border/Gatineau.
 

Do note that this comes from a personal experience—I think I was tainted by a bad experience on an Ottawa clerkship elective where I refused to do anER consult alone based on my concern of acuity/safety because the patient and family were unilingual francophone and I feared not being able to get the information to adequately understand what was going on and what to do. I got flak from the attending for that, I still stand by my decision that I was out of my depth and put patient safety first. 

[Dr. JJ]

1 hour ago, LostLamb said:

Do note that this comes from a personal experience—I think I was tainted by a bad experience on an Ottawa clerkship elective where I refused to do anER consult alone based on my concern of acuity/safety because the patient and family were unilingual francophone and I feared not being able to get the information to adequately understand what was going on and what to do. I got flak from the attending for that, I still stand by my decision that I was out of my depth and put patient safety first. 

Yikes; that sounds tough. Didn't run into that in my Ottawa elective experience (though I did have some other challenges), nor was it mentioned at the CARMS interview day, that I recall - I guess I thought that was why they had a separate francophone application stream.

Something else to be nervous about over the next few weeks, I guess!

-JJ

[NLengr]

Had this conversation on the weekend with an in-law of mine who is a psych. Story I got was that even in Ottawa, it's not hard to find psych work as the demand outstrips the avaliable supply of psychiatrists. My in-law knew a person who just received a staff job at the tertiary care hospital in Ottawa without a fellowship.