A4 December 9, 2010
Orangeville Citizen/Free Press and Economist
Highland Hills Network clinic adds a new doctor By LINDSEY PAPP Staff Reporter
There is a new doctor setting up residence with the Highlands Health Network on Rolling Hills Drive in Orangeville. Dr. Samaiah Ahmed is a 27-year-old native of Hamilton who opened her own family medical practice in September of this year. Dr. Ahmed graduated from McMaster where she did her medical school training. For her residency she went to Toronto. “I spent a year in Toronto and that is how I ended up in Orangeville,” she said in an interview. “My second year of training I spent entirely here and so I actually trained here at this clinic for about six months of that year.” When she finished her training in July of 2009 she spent the rest of the year working in Orangeville in the Headwaters Health Care Centre’s emergency department, covering for one of the doctors who was on a maternity leave. She set up her own practice once that was done and is continuing to work in the emergency department. “When I started med school, in my first year they made us do this thing called rural medicine week, which involves going out to smaller communities and you kind of got immersed in it for a week,” she said. “I spent it in a small town outside Brantford and I was kind of hooked on it from the beginning.” She stated that after her
first experience in a smalltown environment she did as much of her training as far outside of the city as she could get. “When I was going through and picking where I wanted to do my residency I knew I wanted to stay in Southern Ontario but I knew I wanted to work somewhere smaller where I could have the ability to work in an office but also where I could still work in the hospital and Orangeville was just the right fit when it came time to finding a place to work,” she said. Lynn Lowe, the Manager of Highlands Health Network, says she knew that Dr. Ahmed would be a great fit in the current team because of the time she had spent there during her residency. “She fell in love with the area, we think, and wanted to come back,” said Mrs. Lowe. Dr. Ahmed commented that the biggest difference between being a doctor in a small community and one in a big city is the sense of belonging to a community. “Here I know most of the specialists that I am referring people to, I see my patients both in the office and in the emergency department and I feel like there is that continuity that’s not always possible in bigger cities,” she said. “Most important, I think, is the sense of community; I think people who work in smaller areas are looking for that and they often find it here.” Dr. Ahmed commented that a lot of doctors have special interests in the
medical field, explaining why she has continued working in the emergency department since the conclusion of her residency as well as being a family doctor. “I knew I didn’t want to just do family medicine, I didn’t just want to be in an office and when I did my emergency medicine elective I just really enjoyed the fast paced environment but I wanted to get the best of both world.” Dr. Ahmed says she will continue to accept new patients through the provincial ministry’s Health Care Connect initiative. She hopes to work toward having 1,000 patients within the next year. Health Care Connect “is not without its challenges but it has helped me to get about 400-500 patients in the last three months, so it has definitely
made a huge difference,” she said. “I think the one thing I tell people who are out there looking for a doctor is that you have to go and you have to register; if you’re not on that list then its really challenging and you just have to be patient.” She says Health Care Connect is the best way to get a physician right now, and it’s important to have faith in the system. Dr. Ahmed enjoys reading and has photography as a hobby. Asked whether she found it hard starting out, she replied that since it was “because of the team here that I chose to stay here and work here, it wasn’t. “I’m happy here, I have a good network of friends, I work in a really good environment,” she said. “I’m here and I’m committed to being here.”
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NEW DOCTOR: Dr. Samaiah Ahmed is the newest addition to the Highland Health Network in Orangeville.
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