Cameron Smith Considers Medical Recruitment for Northwest Arkansas

Cameron Smith President, Cameron Smith & Associates

Cameron Smith, founder of the executive recruitment firm of Cameron Smith & Associates in Rogers, is considering going into medicine.

Smith said the recent planned medical expansions in northwest Arkansas have compounded a lack of physicians and health care workers in the region. Mercy Northwest Hospital, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Washington Regional Women’s Health Center have all announced or completed multimillion-dollar expansions.

Recruiting candidates has turned difficult with the growth in openings for doctors, which some officials have said number in the hundreds, and that’s not even counting other health care positions.

Hospitals in the area use national search firms to find and recruit candidates, but Smith said there may be a better local solution.

Smith said CSA, which specializes in finding executives for vendors to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, might expand into the medical recruitment field. Smith said the options he has are to buy an existing medical recruitment firm, merge with an existing search firm or hire some medical recruitment experts to work directly for CSA.

“Recruiting doctors to northwest Arkansas, you have to sell Arkansas,” Smith said. “We’ve been doing that for 21 years.

“When I call a [candidate], I tell them I have an opportunity for them. ‘Trust me when I tell you the best part is where it is.’ Then I tell them where it is.”