What the hell is wrong with the health system in Ontario, that it is so impossible to find a family doctor? When I first moved to Ottawa, it took me several years to find one that was taking new patients. I finally found one and snapped her up. Even though I thought she did a so-so job as my own doctor, she turned out to be rockin’ awesome with the kids, and we felt really lucky to have a real family doctor, even if she was a bit of a commute away.
In August she suddenly moved to Sudbury (her husband got a new job), leaving us in the lurch. The office where she worked hired an interim doctor (who we knew, because she’d covered FamilyDoc’s practice a couple of years ago while she was on maternity leave) and tried to find a replacement. For the past few months we’ve been seeing TempDoc and waiting to see if we like the replacement. But today I had Gal Smiley in for a checkup and found out that a) it was TempDoc’s last day, and b) they could not find a replacement, and c) no other doctors at the clinic are accepting new patients, so d) we are cut loose and on our own.
The clinic gave me a list of doctors in the area who they thought might take on new patients, and TempDoc gave me a personal referral. So as soon as I was back out in my car I immediately called them all, and of course, they aren’t taking new patients. I actually cried, because I remember how hard it was to find the first family doctor and it’s such an ordeal, and now is such a bad time for us not to have a doctor due to ongoing health problems with the kids.
Luckily I later found a pediatrician who will take on the kids in the new year. Of course, this leaves us adults with no ongoing care. Crap!
TurtleHead 
It took us a long time to find a Doctor after our Doctor moved away in Toronto. Nicola had to call tons of offices, but this website really helped her:
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Doctor_Search/dr_srch_hm.htm
Maybe you’ll be able to find someone with it…
I didn’t try really hard but it took me five years to find a doctor after coming back to Canada. About 15 years ago the number of training positions were reduce significantly to save money. We’re paying for it now.
Vote NDP in the next provincial election?
Tax the rich (err that isn’t us is it?).
I can see if my Doctor is taking new patients. He’s near Carlingwood and he had to go to Alberta because of the lack of training positions in Ontario. Fill you with confidence, eh!
I also recommend looking at the CPSO site. I just switched doctors and found the site to be semi-accurate in terms of who is accepting new patients. Alas, the site didn’t help me find a doctor in the end since I didn’t feel too comfortable just randomly picking a name from their list.
I ran into the same problems you did. Doctors I dealt with when I was in the hospital gave me names of family doctors they recommended, but none of them were accepting new patients. And ditto with all my friends’ doctors. I finally ended up getting in to see a resident at the hospital’s family practice clinic. So far, so good. I even got a female doctor. (Ok, so I was indifferent to her during my initial consultation, but I went to see her again today for my physical and I felt that she was better than my previous doctor.) And having a resident means that they are up-to-date with their training and everything they do is reviewed by a “real” doctor. Also, I gave her some feedback from our first appointment and she was happy to have it. And I know I’m probably getting really good care since I’m going to a really good hospital (that was my main criteria – to get someone with priviliges to this particular hospital). The one thing with a resident, though, is that they will eventually leave, but another one will come in take over your care.