By Cecilia Nasmith
This is the first week on the job for the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit's new Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Natalie Bocking.
In preparation for her new role, Dr. Bocking has spent the last few weeks sitting in on meetings, meeting with staff members, and learning more about the region and the health unit's pandemic response. Now she is looking forward to meeting more of the health unit's community partners in safeguarding the health of area residents.
“I am looking forward to building relationships with our partners, our stakeholders and our board so that we can work together and continue to make a difference in the communities that we serve,” Dr. Bocking said in the press release.
“Community partners are vital to the work that we do. This is a team effort. A lot of the problems that public health is tackling are huge, and it would be impossible without our community partners.”
Dr. Bocking is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine Specialist, certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2015 following the completion of her specialty training at the University of Toronto. Her academic training also includes a Medical Doctorate from McMaster University and a Master's in International Public Health from the University of Sydney (Australia).
She spent four years working as a public-health physician with Thunder Bay District Health Unit and Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority. In that role, she supported the development of a community-based First Nations-governed public-health system for 31 rural and remote First Nations, whose services included overseeing tuberculosis and hepatitis C programming, population health assessment, and maternal and child-health support.
In addition to her public-health work, Dr. Bocking has worked as a locum family physician in northwestern Ontario. She has published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at provincial and national conferences.
Born in London, Ont., Dr. Bocking and her husband and two children moved to the City of Kawartha Lakes in 2019 to her husband's family farm, which he now operates.
“I went into public health because I thought that some of the issues or health problems I was seeing in family medicine really could have been addressed so much more efficiently at a population level, and that was really where public health fit for me,” she recalled.
Dr. Bocking is assuming her new role after former Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lynn Noseworthy retired in December. Dr. Ian Gemmill has served as Acting Medical Officer of Health in the interim.
