Coming back to her hometown to practice medicine is a "dream come true" for Dr. Sarah Roberts.
The 30-year-old medical oncologist joined the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North in October, making her the second Northern Medical Program graduate to come back to the north after earning a specialization.
"It's been a really incredible journey for me," said Roberts, a Duchess Park secondary graduate, whose father was an engineer involved in the construction of the University of Northern B.C.
"So I actually walked the ground when it was being constructed, when I was a little girl. And then to be able to attend the university for my undergraduate degree was a huge honour and to be able to come back again for the Northern Medical Program, just means a lot to me."
After graduating from the NMP in 2010, Roberts completed a three-year residency in internal medicine at the University of Saskatchewan and another two-year residency in medical oncology at the University of Alberta.
Dr. Alym Abdulla was the first NMP graduate to return to the city with a specialization, setting up his urology practice in 2014.
"I think that there's going to be so many more grads coming down the pipeline," said Roberts. "And because it takes so many years to train a specialist, there's a bit of a lag time and that's to be expected."
The Northern Medical Program was launched in 2004 in an effort to increase the medical graduates in rural and more-remote regions of the province.
Initially interested in veterinary medicine, Roberts said it was a discovery that she loved working with people that drew her to the Northern Medical Program.
Roberts is now one of two medical oncologists at the cancer centre. Medical oncologists diagnose and treat cancer through chemotherapy or hormone therapy.
"A number of things (drew me to oncology) but I think being able to follow patients over a longer time period and get to know them and their families and help them in a number of different ways has really been a huge draw for me," Roberts said. "And the practice of oncology is always changing and always challenging and it's just a fantastic opportunity here, very rewarding."
Acquiring Roberts was key for the busy cancer centre, said Northern Medical Program head Dr. Paul Winwood.
"It's not just that we're providing the care locally, it's that in the past I think a significant number of patients did not accept care because of the distances involved (to travel for treatment)," he said. "And what I'm seeing in my physician life here is that the cancer centre is busier than we had anticipated because more patients are being treated than would have been treated without a local cancer centre. So it's not just having a centre in the north, I think it's actually meeting an unmet need and a need we weren't even aware was as big as it is."
Having a specialized NMP graduate back in Prince George is exciting, said Winwood, who noted specialists take longer to become accredited than doctors going into family medicine.
"And on a personal level, I came to Prince George in 2008 and I remember teaching Sarah in internal medicine," he added. "And to see her come back now as a specialist - and a very good specialist - and practicing independently is just such a pleasure. It's really fantastic."
