Islanders initiated the search last summer when their physician of six years decided to head ashore. Though pleased with the response, they’ve been unable to make a match, which has left the town doctorless – and increasingly nervous – as the Maine winter set in.
“Not having a doctor on the island, especially in winter, has created anxiety for people,” observes Pat Curtis, chairperson of North Haven’s Selectmen and Overseers of the Poor. “Especially for the elderly and people who have small children. The level of comfort on the island is much better when you know there is [medical] coverage. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s the same on the mainland: People like to know they have access to a doctor if they need one.”
Some residents have delayed seeking medical care, while others have made the hour-long ferry trip to see mainland physicians. Still, as winter blew in and seas grew rough, one elderly woman left the island for the season, exchanging lifetime comforts of home, family and friends for a room on the mainland and access to a doctor.
Finding a physician to care for any small, remote community presents a unique set of challenges; finding a physician willing to live on an island, to glide into the long-established rhythms of rock and sea, presents even more. Indeed, as one native of Frenchboro, an even smaller community south of Mt. Desert, observed, “it takes a special person to live on an island.”
Then again, that’s exactly who the islanders are looking for.
“It is different here, and for some it might be too isolated,” Curtis explains. “People have to be quite self-reliant in some ways with their leisure time. And we are concerned about burnout because the doctor is always on call.
“Riding the ferry is an eye-opener,” she continues. “At the end of the day, there’s no ferry, no more trips to the mainland until the next morning, and that’s difficult for a lot of people.” Nonetheless, “it’s a beautiful place to live,” and volunteer community activities can fill hours of free time, Curtis said.
In any small town where everyone’s either a neighbor or a relative or both, people not only know where you live, but they know what you’re doing when you’re not at home. “It’s hard to be anonymous on an island,” confirms Curtis, chuckling.
The job is offered currently as a town-subsidized private practice with a one-year contract. But Town Administrator Dake Collins says the community is re-examining the private business system and reviewing two other options: a town-operated practice, like that on Islesboro to the north, and a private, nonprofit practice like the one on Vinalhaven, located a half-mile across the Fox Island Thorofare.
“We’re flexible, and we’re willing to negotiate with the right candidate,” offers Curtis.
Among other benefits, the deal includes an annual stipend of $53,120, a four-bedroom house with a clinic attached, and a share of small-town life on one of New England’s most picturesque islands.
North Haven is regarded as a sailor’s paradise. Its breathtaking bluffs and shores cradle the cottages of well-heeled summer rusticators, many of whom employ islanders.
The three-by-eight-mile island holds art galleries, a grocery store, two restaurants (open in summer), gift shops and Calderwood Hall – an art gallery, gift shop, and, in summer, a Mecca for musicians and poets as well as open-mike-night enthusiasts.
A doctor won’t find malls or movie theaters on North Haven, but she or he will discover a medical practice that is unparalleled in most mainland communities.
“[An island practice] is a family doctor’s dream because we get to take care of the whole person – everything from heart attacks to broken hearts – as well as taking care of emergencies,” explains Dr. Rick Donahue, who has served Vinalhaven’s 1,200 residents for the last eight years. “It’s pretty unique because family doctors on the mainland are seeing narrower aspects of patient care. Patients go to one doctor to treat a heart condition, for example, and go to another doctor for counseling.”
Donahue notes that North Haven’s practice offers one particular challenge that “may be an advantage” to prospective candidates. “The patient population isn’t large enough to keep a doctor busy full-time. If doctors had other interests they’d like to pursue, they would have time to do that,” he says.
“A doctor could also be very creative in initiating clinics that would be far more difficult to establish on the mainland. There’s no medical bureaucracy to deal with and that’s a big plus. We’ve done a lot with community medicine on Vinalhaven by setting up clinics for diabetes, prostate cancer, cholesterol and skin cancer. We’ve prevented heart attacks, diabetes and cancer by running those clinics, and they’re community sponsored.”
Curtis adds that the spot may interest a physician who’s nearing retirement but wants to continue practicing or a doctor who wants to spend more time with his or her family.
The practice is “definitely for someone who wants to be neighbors with their patients. It wouldn’t be right for someone who likes their personal life and their doctor’s life completely separate,” observes Donahue, who worked in rural Maine towns and started a practice in the city of Brunswick prior to moving to Vinalhaven. “The community has to like the doctor.”
Hiring involves 10 people who serve as selectmen or Medical Service Board members. If an interview sails smoothly, the applicant is encouraged to work on the island for a week or two. “It gives us a chance to become better acquainted with each other,” Curtis says of the daunting and intimately personal task of hiring someone to care for a 370-member island family.
Curtis and Donahue agree that two (among other) major attractions include North Haven’s top-rated K-12 school and “great theater.” The school emphasizes experiential learning and boasts a zero dropout rate.
Island theater produced and directed by Tony Award-winning director John Wulp, a Vinalhaven resident, includes diverse productions that range from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams.
North Haven won national praise when islanders delivered their autobiographical musical “Islands” to the island of Manhattan within weeks of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Following their Broadway debut to raise money for the school’s art program, the cast and crew (one-sixth of North Haven’s population) staged benefit performances in New York and Portland for the September 11 Fund.
Recently the federal government qualified North Haven as a “medically under-served community.” The designation “is good for $20,000 a year for three years,” points out Collins. “It’s a good incentive for someone with outstanding medical school loans.”
Meanwhile, occasional interim physicians and a nurse practitioner have kept the threads of medical care from unraveling while the doctor search continues. “This week,” says Collins, “there won’t be anybody here. That’s when people really worry about not making it off the island if they need a doctor. If there’s a northeaster or a bad storm, there may be no way out of here.”
Not having a physician, adds Curtis, “has placed a big burden on our Emergency Medical Technicians because they’re the only ones standing between an emergency and the help that’s needed.”
Curtis and others could not recall a time when North Haven did not have a full-time doctor. “But I’m sure if I or someone in my family had medical problems at the time,” she reflects, “I would recall it very well.”
For medical practice applications and information contact Dake Collins by email at
dcollins@midcoast.com or by telephone at 207-867-4433 or 207-867-2240.