Passion for addressing doctor shortages results in award

Media Release

22 March 2013

For Immediate Release

Passion for addressing doctor shortages results in prestigious award

It’s a well-known problem; there is a genuine shortage of doctors in regional and remote areas throughout Australasia. However, contrary to belief this is only partly due to lack of doctors, it is also a result of rural hospitals and practices having difficulty in attracting appropriately matched medical practitioners to their towns.

By providing a service which focuses on aligning the needs of doctors, hospitals and clinics, medical recruitment agency, MedRecruit, which has featured in the Deloitte Fast 50 for the past four consecutive years, has helped regional hospitals and clinics tackle this problem head-on. Since 2006 they have been working with regional hospitals and practices to provide certainty in their staffing by placing locum and permanent doctors with them who want it all; a fulfilling career and great lifestyle – both of which often go hand-in-hand when working in rural locations.

It is this, combined with MedRecruit’s ability to truly understand clients’ needs along with their exceptional customer service, that is responsible for Dr. Sam Hazledine, the founder of MedRecruit and 2012’s Ernst & Young – Young Entrepreneur of the Year, being named the New Zealand regional award winner at the RCSA PEARL Awards (for professional emerging and aspiring recruitment leaders) last night at the inaugural PEARL Cocktail evening.

“It is an honour to be representing New Zealand in this Australasian award. It speaks volumes of the team at MedRecruit and our commitment to making a real positive difference.” said Dr. Hazledine.

“The PEARL Award is an integral part of this inaugural Consultant Forum and we are committed to building on the success of this year’s award and event to become one of the highlights in the RCSA calendar. We congratulate not only the finalists, but everyone who was nominated. Our members are doing wonderful work out there, they are dedicated and passionate people and we are extremely proud of them and their contribution to the industry.” Said RCSA CEO, Steve Granland.

The Australasian winner of the PEARL Award will be announced at the RCSA Annual Gala Ball on 30 May in Sydney.

…END

More about Dr. Sam Hazledine

Thirty three year old Sam Hazledine holds himself to the highest standards in all aspects of his life. He persists until he is successful in everything he partakes in; from graduating from Otago Medical School in 2003, to convincingly winning the New Zealand Extreme Ski Championships by skiing the most dangerous lines and dropping a 90 foot cliff thereby qualifying for the World Tour later that year, to starting and growing MedRecruit into a successful profitable business at awesome speed.

Sam does not see obstacles as problems, rather as opportunities to overcome and to grow. In 2002 he sustained a life-threatening head injury which put him in a coma for two days. Doctors said he would probably not function at a high level again and that it was unlikely he would be able to return to medical school and he would certainly never ski again. Sam didn’t buy into this! Within two months he was back at medical school and one year later he won the national freeski title.

After realising his dream of winning the national extreme ski title in the winter of 2003, Sam started work as a junior doctor. He quickly saw that the medical system was not adapting and catering for the changing lifestyle demands of the new generation of doctors entering into medicine, and this was leading to an alarming 25% of medical graduates leaving New Zealand within three years of graduation.

After one-and-a-half years working in the hospital system as a salaried doctor, Sam decided to go locuming. He dealt with the big medical recruitment agencies and found their service lacking. All the agencies paid lip service to lifestyle, but none could actually deliver it to doctors. None of them had an objective way to match doctors to work that suited not only their careers, but also their lifestyles.

Sam saw the opportunity to help doctors achieve a lifestyle in medicine and an idea was born. But, for the idea to succeed, Sam had to approach it in a completely novel way compared to the established, traditional, agencies. To deliver what doctors really wanted Sam had to create a lifestyle-centric agency that had an objective way of matching doctors to jobs that matched their lives and careers.

Sam’s idea was met with disapproval from the medical establishment who wanted junior doctors to continue to ask no questions and do as they were told. The biggest medical recruitment agency in New Zealand actually threatened Sam, warning him of the competitive environment he was getting into and making it clear they would do what they could to ensure he failed.

Despite this, Sam knew what doctors needed and weren’t getting, and he wanted to deliver it to them. He also knew that innovative marketing was needed to get his message to doctors and he was determined to make it a success.

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