RPAP-funded enrichment train-ing in palliative care has led a Claresholm-based family physician into a new career niche.

Dr. Ron Spice set up a family practice in Claresholm in 1990.  Over the course of the next eleven years, he realized he was seeing more palliative patients - many with palliative pain issues - and felt that additional training in this area would give him the skills to best meet their needs.

In 2001, Ron approached Dr. Neil Hagen, Head of Palliative Care in the Division of Oncology at U of C.  Together they talked about the skills he would like to have at the end of his training, the length of time that he would need to accomplish the training, and how that training might be structured.  Dr. Hagen showed eagerness to custom-design Ron's training program to ensure it met his needs for both training and flexibility.  In the end, the two decided on six months of specialized palliative care training divided into two three-month blocks (Spring and Fall) with some additional flexibility for Ron to handle weekend call, keep tabs on his palliative patients in Claresholm, and have the summer free to help cover his busy practice. Once into his training, however, Ron also discovered new practice opportunities.

"I soon found," says Ron, "that I could do consulting in palliative care as a specialized area of practice within family medicine. While I wasn't initially sure about how much time this consulting would consume, I eventually reached a point where I decided that this was the type of practice I wanted to do full time."  Early in 2002, Ron allowed a locum who had been working with him to take over his practice.

Ron is now using his newly acquired skills as a full time palliative consultant based out of the Claresholm General Hospital. where he provides palliative consulting primarily to clients in the Headwaters Health Authority.

"I've used the skills acquired through enrichment training and stayed in a rural area," says Ron. "I hope to use the regional transition now underway to build an interdisciplinary palliative care team for the rural area around Calgary."