Northumberland Hills Hospital celebrates Rural Ontario Medical Program (ROMP) Week!

Pete Fisher
15 hours ago
• Categories: Local

Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) is collaborating with the Rural Ontario Medical Program (ROMP) for their annual ROMP Week 2025 celebrations, which kicked off across the province on
Monday, January 13.

ROMP Week is an elective opportunity that gives students from Ontario medical schools a chance to gain valuable hands-on clinical experience, while highlighting the medical and geographical benefits of practicing medicine in rural communities like Northumberland County.

This year, NHH is very pleased to welcome first-year medical students Amrit Marwaha, Tasneem Patel, and Neha Tangri, who are each currently enrolled in the new Queen’s University-Lakeridge Health MD Family Medicine Program.

Launched in 2023, the unique Queen’s/Lakeridge program is designed to help address the shortage of family doctors in the province, while providing medical students with immersive clinical experiences from year 1 in a variety of Family Medicine practice settings.

Amrit, Tasneem, and Neha began their ROMP Week experience on Monday morning at Northumberland Hills Hospital with a warm welcome from Dr. Emma Smith, Northumberland-based family physician and NHH’s Medical Quality Physician lead, who will also be serving as their Medical Education Lead and one of the preceptors.

In addition to the support they will receive from NHH and Dr. Smith, the students will also be paired with local family physicians, Dr. Michelle Long and Dr. Marcus Cunningham, who are acting as preceptors for the week.

Together with the hospital’s Medical Affairs Department, and with appreciation to the West Northumberland Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee, Dr. Smith has planned a full week of clinical and social activities to showcase the many opportunities that NHH and Northumberland County have to offer.

“ROMP Week is a real ‘win-win’. It’s very beneficial to new medical students because it provides early exposure to rural medicine in the hopes that more students will choose to work in rural communities,” said Dr. Emma Smith. “In the past, ROMP Week students have returned to Northumberland and NHH later in their training— often during clerkship or residency—making initiatives like ROMP Week a primary recruitment opportunity for the hospital and the community at large.”

“On behalf of NHH, I want to recognize Dr. Smith and our 2025 preceptors, Drs. Long and Cunningham, for taking time from their own busy work weeks to educate and inspire the next generation of family physicians,” said Susan Walsh, NHH President and CEO. “We know from our collaborative efforts with the Ontario Health Team of Northumberland and anecdotally from family physicians who have practiced here for some time that it is communities that attract professionals and their families.

As one physician, Dr. Kate Everdell, highlighted so eloquently in our recent People First documentary, ‘NHH has been a terrific fit for my career and Northumberland has been an amazing fit for my family’ and ROMP provides a great opportunity.”

“The personal impact that these ROMP connections and first impressions start cannot be understated,” added Dr. Mukesh Bhargava, NHH Chief of Staff. “We have a strong history in Northumberland of successful recruitment through the ROMP experience and we are very much looking forward to demonstrating to these students the diverse opportunities this hospital and community has to offer.”
To learn more about the Rural Ontario Medical Program (ROMP) or ROMP Week, please visit https://romponline.com/

To view NHH’s People First documentary, please visit https://nhh.ca/careers/peoplefirst.com/