Alberta government cuts number of medical students

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

For what nurses get paid..........they should be worked hard.

Entry level nurses who choose to go full time make $56k a year. Is that really a lot? Plus if you're low on seniority, you work horrible hours. How would you like to work every major holiday for 2 or 3 years?

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

Just out of curiosity, what do you do Canada 02? Are you a medical doctor?

Prof at a medical school. Don't know what the current U of C admission standard is, but it use to be a high B+ level GPA and a middle of the road MCAT score could get you into their program. Quantity is good, but so is quality

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

I'm not saying make it so they can't even afford to feed their family. But a slight decrease in pay. Most of these guys make way too much. My family and most of my friends are Doctors or in med school and even talking to these guys, getting a slight reduction would not stop them from working.

Sure, but it would result in some of them working in Vancouver or Saskatoon instead of Calgary... There is no such thing as "too much" - everybody makes what their market value is.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by TheyCallMeBruce

Entry level nurses who choose to go full time make $56k a year. Is that really a lot? Plus if you're low on seniority, you work horrible hours. How would you like to work every major holiday for 2 or 3 years?

With benefits and a defined pension. It's always great when government employees complaining about wages conveniently forget that they don't need to save for retirement...

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

Prof at a medical school. Don't know what the current U of C admission standard is, but it use to be a high B+ level GPA and a middle of the road MCAT score could get you into their program. Quantity is good, but so is quality

Haha. You'll be lucky to even get in with a 3.3 now. Standards have shot up. The minimum is usually around a 3.5 now. Most have around a 3.7-3.9 gpa. MCAT marks also have to be top rate too.

A lot of students are going overseas to the States, Australia and Ireland. Even though tuition is a hella lot more, it's worth it in the long run.

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

Haha. You'll be lucky to even get in with a 3.3 now. Standards have shot up. The minimum is usually around a 3.5 now. Most have around a 3.7-3.9 gpa. MCAT marks also have to be top rate too.

A lot of students are going overseas to the States, Australia and Ireland. Even though tuition is a hella lot more, it's worth it in the long run.

3.7 is an A-. The average (median) was 3.6 - thats a high B+

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

3.7 is an A-. The average (median) was 3.6 - thats a high B+

That's still very tough to get. If you have ever looked at the dean's list (pretty short for the amount of students) and that's only a 3.5.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

3.7 is an A-. The average (median) was 3.6 - thats a high B+

Does it always come down to grades though? I'm a big fan of Patch Adams myself. We need more funny people.

Rumour has it I'm engaged to a nurse... they seem to do ok but I know personally I wouldn't want to know what my cap for earning potential is as established by their union. Some of the sick days they are able to bank are crazy... some days they are absolutely loony tunes busy while some days they aren't. It's an odd job.

I guess the one justification to paying nurses more would be that as time goes on they seem to be given more and more responsibility and accountability for certain tasks (or so I'm told).

[LChoy]

Some of you may know that I work for Health here so I may be a bit bias, but I'll do my best to give a neutral commentary

What I see right now is that the system is caught between traditional and the new generation of health care delivery.
It may be interesting to note, but there is no such thing as a standard working hour/days per week for physicians. On average in Alberta, physicians work an equivalent of 3.2 days providing primary care (seeing patients). The rest of that time can spent on many number of things including research, academic pursuits, and administrative duties. There is also know standard to a physician's patient panel (the number of patients that call them "their doctor"). In Alberta, it ranges from 300 to 1700 people.
The problem being is that government needs time to adapt to the changing habit of physicians and other health care providers. Our parent's generation had physicians regularly working a full work week and making house calls. Currently with nurses, their work hours are shorter than a generation before. They can also do much more than their earlier counter parts. If we are looking purely at head counts, the ratio of health providers to the population has remained quite stable (although reduced these last 2 decades). However, it's the amount of workable hours that is going down. Lastly, and just speaking of trends here, a greater % of physicians and health care providers are women. However, statistically speaking, they tend to work fewer hours than their male counter parts

Now, am I blaming the physicians and health care provider, nope. Alberta has one of the highest reimbursement rates in all of Canada. Physicians shouldn't have to kill themselves working 80 hour weeks earning a living, when they can focus on quality patient care working at a clinic 3 days a week. Physicians also have much more to their duties from a generation past including research, collaborating with drug companies, teaching, learning opportunities. They also have to manage the business side to their business and cover overhead that was much simpler years before. It's not an easy life, so they are entitled to their compensation and set the hours they can handle. Same goes with the nursing professions, they are being trained to perform duties ranging from an LPN to a nurse pratitioner level. Problem however is that it's creating a gap at the lower end of the spectrum and that's responsible for the shortages facing the nursing staff.

The direction the government seems to be going (right or wrong) is that it's not the numbers of health care providers needed, but making the ones we have now work more effectively.

I don't think that means physicians and nurses going back to 80 hour weeks. However, little things like utilizing all the knowledge that nurses now have to see patients directly instead at clinics (ie, re-filling a prescription, BP checks, most physicals, getting an inhaler can all be accomplished by a nurse rather than a physician). Other ideas include re-looking at health care compensation. Alberta has the highest rate of physician fee for service (how physicians get paid, they bill directly to the government, so you don't see a bill). From the previous example, a physicial done by a nurses is covered by their salary while a physician bills $260 for the same 10min visit.

Anyways, sorry to go on a tangent
The government tends to get mostly the negative view on things but we are trying to make things better

[wooohooo]

http://www.oxfordseminars.ca/MCAT/mcat_profiles.php

I'm not sure how up to date this is but...

University of Alberta
Minimum GPA: 3.86 [on a scale of four] for fourth-year students, 3.92 for second- and third-year students.

UBC
Average GPA: A / 83.15%

UofC
Average GPA: 3.2

[MJM]

Originally Posted by TheyCallMeBruce

Yeah, nurses can't find a job, but there are no funds to hire them. And hospitals are severely understaffed to a point where they're declining vacations to nurses who apply 6 months in advance. One of my nursing friend is thinking of taking a leave of absence because she feels overworked.

Also, I've been told nurses aren't getting raises for the next 3 years...and the union negotiations are coming up soon. I wouldn't be surprise if another strike occurs.

Cutting doctor positions at a unviersity, I have a problem with. Nurses on the other hand, cry me a river. There's not a more overpaid position in the public sector, and there's also not another group of workers in the public sector that abuse the system as much as these people (i bet it would blow the public's mind what some of these people are pulling in over overtime).

My wife has about 5 friends that are nurses. All of them bitch constantly, but all make close or over 100K, while not working any weekend and rarely over 45 hours a week.

[wooohooo]

I should also add that these schools have intensive interview processes. I've gone through the U of C and UA medical interviews and UC is by far one of the toughest there is. They ask you intimidating questions, write an essay.

I have a tremendous respect for the medical profession as you can probably tell.

[SebC]

Alberta's government has got to be one of the most reactionary on the planet. We should be training doctors based on whether or not we will need them when they graduate, not based on the economic conditions of the day.

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by MJM

Cutting doctor positions, I have a problem with. Nurses on the other hand, cry me a river. There's not a more overpaid position in the public sector, and there's also not another group of workers in the public sector that abuse the system as much as these people.

http://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/Conte...RO_ID=71002748

According to the 2009 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, Albertans in the Registered Nurses group earned from $30.80 to $40.43 an hour. The average wage was $36.55 an hour.

That's not very much for amount of schooling that they go through... but as Vlad said earlier they get other benefits others don't get. So that's a pretty good salary, but it's not like they're making a tremendous amount of money.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by MJM

Cutting doctor positions, I have a problem with. Nurses on the other hand, cry me a river. There's not a more overpaid position in the public sector, and there's also not another group of workers in the public sector that abuse the system as much as these people.

Yea! And those teachers too! Slackers, the lot of em.





/runs for cover.

[MJM]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

http://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/Conte...RO_ID=71002748




That's not very much for amount of schooling that they go through... but as Vlad said earlier they get other benefits others don't get. So that's a pretty good salary, but it's not like they're making a tremendous amount of money.

At the middle of your range, that's about 75K a year for Nurse. Seems appropriate.

It's the overtime and the abuse of that system that is the problem. Speaking as a person with a lot of experience with corporate budgetting, the first step I would take in addressing some fo the health cares needs of Alberta, would be highering more nurses and enforcing a strict no overtime policy. We are paying someone double their wage, to work longer hours when the same job could be performed for half the price.

There is not a shortage of nurses in this country, there is a shortage of funds due to the inappropriately use of what is available. As for trhe "We work so many hours, we can't even take vacation" complaint. If the province imputted a strategy similar to the one I mentioned above, the same nurses complaining would be up in arms because they are making a bloody mint on overtime.

I have the utmost respect for the profession of nurses, but the systems has many holes that need to be changed, and doesn't do well for the public perception of nurses when they continually make every manoever they can to exploit any potential hole.

[Dang]

Originally Posted by yads

Misleading thread title to say the least. The Alberta government cuts university budget is not the same as The Alberta government cuts medical spots. Sounds like a lot of spin by the universities in order to get tuition hikes approved.

I had no intention of being misleading. The article just says that the province is only funding 140 spaces, rather than the 190 they did last year. And I doubt this is just spin. If you read the article, the Dean is asking current medical students to write to the government to support the tuition increases. I think the situation has to be pretty serious for the Dean to ask students to support paying higher tuition.

Calling the financial situation "extremely difficult," he asked students to write to Advanced Education and Technology Minister Doug Horner in support of a proposed $3,400 annual tuition increase.

Of the 190 students the university planned to accept next year, the province is only funding about 140 through its base grant, so the university could cut up to 50 spaces, Pawa said.

[Bill Bumface]

So now that there will be nobody to work in our fancy new hospital on the south edge of town we can turn it into a homeless shelter!

[MJM]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

Yea! And those teachers too! Slackers, the lot of em.





/runs for cover.

Some teachers are slackers, some go over and beyond what is expected of them. Same as any other job. Teachers likely work just as much as a nurse though, and I don't hear them whining about it all the time and they don't get paid anything (let alone double time) for the hours they put in outside of 8am to 4 pm!

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by MJM

Some teachers are slackers, some go over and beyond what is expected of them. Same as any other job. Teachers likely work just as much as a nurse though, and I don't hear them whining about it all the time and they don't get paid anything (let alone double time) for the hours they put in outside of 8am to 4 pm!

One of my sisters is a teacher... haha when they have teacher get togethers I hear it from them as often as from nurses. Those two professions have got to be the biggest whiners but let's not forget, they're not exactly making six figure salaries here.