Any family doctor leads right now?

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by blankall

There's a shortage of GPs across the country. It's a much larger economic issue. Canada has an extremely low amount of medical school spots, that are extremely competitive to get into. Many students come out of medical school with large amounts of debt, and many competitive people don't want to live middle class lifestyles. Convincing medical students to willingly become GPs is a difficult task.

Even if you increased pay, it probably wouldn't fix the issue. The cost of living and property is so out of site, that giving GPs and extra $20-50k a year (which would not be a popular move), wouldn't change a thing.

It's also just as much to do with generational bottleknecking. For the last 30 years, they didn't need many doctors, as babyboomers had all the spots. Those doctors are retiring on mass and there's no one to replace them. The medical schools all maintained the same amount of medical school spots for decades, as the Gen X doctors entering the field were complaining about not having enough jobs available.

it's all a mess.

As a father of a child who will be applying to med school this fall, I'd really appreciate it if they made a concerted effort to boost the number of spots.

As an aside, I just read today that Canada and the U.S. are two of the few (only?) countries that require an undergrad degree prior to attending med school.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by blankall

There's a shortage of GPs across the country. It's a much larger economic issue. Canada has an extremely low amount of medical school spots, that are extremely competitive to get into. Many students come out of medical school with large amounts of debt, and many competitive people don't want to live middle class lifestyles. Convincing medical students to willingly become GPs is a difficult task.

Even if you increased pay, it probably wouldn't fix the issue. The cost of living and property is so out of site, that giving GPs and extra $20-50k a year (which would not be a popular move), wouldn't change a thing.

It's also just as much to do with generational bottleknecking. For the last 30 years, they didn't need many doctors, as babyboomers had all the spots. Those doctors are retiring on mass and there's no one to replace them. The medical schools all maintained the same amount of medical school spots for decades, as the Gen X doctors entering the field were complaining about not having enough jobs available.

it's all a mess.

don't disagree at all with your general points


I will say Alberta was in a position (based on pay, affordability and other factors) to at least be out in front of what is a national problem- in my opinion only (others may disagree) this 'advantage' has been blown by other factors through and coming out of COVID, mostly based on adversarial government positions, but not entirely


further (and this would not be specific to Alberta) in addition to 'boomers' retiring, I do believe you have docs at increasingly younger ages looking at a way out or a scale back, and younger generations looking at entirely different lifestyle based calculations that make them unlikely to recreate the work model of older genX, let alone boomer and earlier. (there are legit demographic and other reasons for this, so not necessarily blaming anyone but I think it's true- either way that means we need to build that in to any solutions)

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

If you're willing to go to a teaching facility, the Family Medicine Clinic at the Sheldon Chumir is where my wife and I go/have our doctors.

It was pretty easy to get in/get a doctor.
There are some downsides:
1) it's downtime (not a big deal for me, but might be for you)
2) you'll typically either have a med student (intern maybe? I'm not sure of the correct term) either in the room, or who does the initial assessment, but after that the doctor we have is really quite involved and is really good to us

I see a doctor at that same clinic and I love it. Having a senior doctor and a student in the same room is the best of both worlds. You get the experience and up-to-date education.

My previous doctor at the same clinic retired a few years ago and passed me onto a new doctor seamlessly. It was great.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by D as in David

As a father of a child who will be applying to med school this fall, I'd really appreciate it if they made a concerted effort to boost the number of spots.

As an aside, I just read today that Canada and the U.S. are two of the few (only?) countries that require an undergrad degree prior to attending med school.

I don't think the 2nd paragraph is entirely true. for a really long time now I guess undergrad degrees (and frankly often more) might be considered the 'norm' in Canada but they aren't required- I'll just link to UofT below which I found quickly on the googles (3 years required), although I think the proportion without an undergrad degree is probably pretty small


https://applymd.utoronto.ca/academic-requirements


definitely this is less true in many countries in Europe- for example- although often kids are getting in straight out of highschool but doing (I think ) 6-7 year programs (and in some countries at least historically then often with weird long postgrad/residency journeys), so I don't think they were always shaving major years off the problem


I appreciate that its a long haul and the money required is a lot (and increasing and of course this leads to a lot of other inequities) but in my observation its not a horrible thing to have someone having pursued an undergrad prior to med school (and not always for the course content per se)

[blankall]

Originally Posted by D as in David

As a father of a child who will be applying to med school this fall, I'd really appreciate it if they made a concerted effort to boost the number of spots.

As an aside, I just read today that Canada and the U.S. are two of the few (only?) countries that require an undergrad degree prior to attending med school.

BC is adding a new school...in 2026.

Here's a list of all the schools and the spots they have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ools_in_Canada

One thing that will drastically increase her odds of getting into a Canadian school is to attend university in Ontario. Most provinces give preference to students who went to high school or university in their province.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by blankall

BC is adding a new school...in 2026.

Here's a list of all the schools and the spots they have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ools_in_Canada

One thing that will drastically increase her odds of getting into a Canadian school is to attend university in Ontario. Most provinces give preference to students who went to high school or university in their province.

there was some attempted announcements a few weeks ago about adding a med school in Cape Breton too, although last I read they hadn't really bothered to run that by any of the people that would have needed to staff and or teach at it.


hmm just looked into it again and appears the NS gov't is full steam ahead with the plan


Funding, Plans for New Medical School Campus in Cape Breton - Government of Nova Scotia, Canada

[blankall]

Originally Posted by looooob

there was some attempted announcements a few weeks ago about adding a med school in Cape Breton too, although last I read they hadn't really bothered to run that by any of the people that would have needed to staff and or teach at it.


hmm just looked into it again and appears the NS gov't is full steam ahead with the plan


Funding, Plans for New Medical School Campus in Cape Breton - Government of Nova Scotia, Canada

So by 2031ish...we should have some more doctors?

They plan to open the school in 2025, which seems extremely quick. Then another 6 years to train the doctors from there.

[cSpooge]

Originally Posted by wireframe

I see a doctor at that same clinic and I love it. Having a senior doctor and a student in the same room is the best of both worlds. You get the experience and up-to-date education.

My previous doctor at the same clinic retired a few years ago and passed me onto a new doctor seamlessly. It was great.

My doctor moved to the clinic and I've had no issues other than the odd time that ALL the residents come in for some of my appointments because I have a couple rare things that don't pop up often so they want to get them experience with it.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by cSpooge

My doctor moved to the clinic and I've had no issues other than the odd time that ALL the residents come in for some of my appointments because I have a couple rare things that don't pop up often so they want to get them experience with it.

Million to one shot doc.... Million to one.

[Derek Sutton]

The family doctor situation is a complete disaster, and unsustainable. It really is an embarrassment for the province. Living down in Lethbridge the estimate is that some 30,000 residents do not have a family doctor, thats about 1/3 of the population. And of those that do, many have gone to smaller outlying communities to find theirs. We are likely finding our next doctor in High River or Okotoks as that is the closest option.

My wife's doctor left summer of 2020 and I have been without one for about 8 years. We are both mid 40's now so at the age where annual exams and screening are becoming important.

[Fuzzy14]

I had the same doctor for the first 27 years of my life. We were very fortunate, but it involved us following him as he moved his practice all over town (we lived SE and he was in the hamptons at one point). When he retired a few years ago, I was fortunate enough that my wife's doctor was willing to take me on.

Like many posters, I find it increasingly difficult to get in with any sort of speed. I tend to renew my prescriptions with phone appointments and if I have something that needs a quick turnaround, I visit a walk-in clinic.

[DoubleF]

Always look up the reviews on doctors before selecting them. There was a few recently that had previously been disciplined for certain things in other towns or cities, moved to Calgary and started accepting new patients as a family doctor.

The family doctor thing is also dumb for group clinics. Some of them won't do anything because they're not the primary doctor if your family doctor is not available. I'm not even talking specialists. I'm talking prescription refills for stuff you've taken for years, which in theory even pharmacists can do sometimes. It's so dumb.

[GirlySports]

You have to find in new areas or new clinics.

In the West I recently switched to Blue Diamond Medical in West Springs.
https://bluediamondmedical.ca/

Accepting new patients, my whole family just got accepted. Dr. Farhat.
He's actually hiring 2 to 3 new physicians right now.

[Fuzzy14]

As a father of a child who will be applying to med school this fall, I'd really appreciate it if they made a concerted effort to boost the number of spots.

As an aside, I just read today that Canada and the U.S. are two of the few (only?) countries that require an undergrad degree prior to attending med school.

I think this may be a similar thing to law school in that in other parts of the world, it isn't always a post-graduate degree (though technically, a law degree still isn't a post-grad degree anyways) but I digress. You can get into some programs having only completed a portion of an undergrad but it isn't the norm. You have to be a truly incredible candidate because there is no shortage of excellent candidates who have completed a degree.

My own view is that it's better that they have completed a bachelors before a JD or MD. Lawyers and Doctors deal with stuff that is frankly too important to be entrusted to a 22-23 year old. A couple of extra years makes a big difference in development in your early twenties; I know I was a completely different person by then.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy14

I think this may be a similar thing to law school in that in other parts of the world, it isn't always a post-graduate degree (though technically, a law degree still isn't a post-grad degree anyways) but I digress. You can get into some programs having only completed a portion of an undergrad but it isn't the norm. You have to be a truly incredible candidate because there is no shortage of excellent candidates who have completed a degree.

My own view is that it's better that they have completed a bachelors before a JD or MD. Lawyers and Doctors deal with stuff that is frankly too important to be entrusted to a 22-23 year old. A couple of extra years makes a big difference in development in your early twenties; I know I was a completely different person by then.

Yeah, more undergraduate degrees = more competition for anything. Didn't some get into med school after 2 years undergraduate before? Probably impossible now.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

The family doctor situation is a complete disaster, and unsustainable. It really is an embarrassment for the province. Living down in Lethbridge the estimate is that some 30,000 residents do not have a family doctor, thats about 1/3 of the population. And of those that do, many have gone to smaller outlying communities to find theirs. We are likely finding our next doctor in High River or Okotoks as that is the closest option.

My wife's doctor left summer of 2020 and I have been without one for about 8 years. We are both mid 40's now so at the age where annual exams and screening are becoming important.

The shortage is going on across the country. The problem is actually much worse in other provinces and cities with higher costs of living. Alberta pays its family doctors the most out of any province (these are payments received from the government, not take home income):

https://invested.mdm.ca/md-articles/...-salary-canada

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Yeah, more undergraduate degrees = more competition for anything. Didn't some get into med school after 2 years undergraduate before? Probably impossible now.

Most medical school applications are split into two criteria: marks and character/extra-curricular.

The marks are based on your 3 best years typically, so you can apply after 3 years of undergrad if you had really great marks. It would be harder to get in only because with 4 years you can drop all of your worst marks when calculating your average.

I went through both the law school and medical school application process.

[Fuzzy14]

The med school application process is insanely competitive. I had multiple friends with 3.8-4.0 GPAs, high test scores and stellar extra-curriculars have to go through multiple application cycles at UofC to get in (arguably, they may have been able to get into another school earlier if they had been willing but they were dead set on UofC).

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy14

The med school application process is insanely competitive. I had multiple friends with 3.8-4.0 GPAs, high test scores and stellar extra-curriculars have to go through multiple application cycles at UofC to get in (arguably, they may have been able to get into another school earlier if they had been willing but they were dead set on UofC).

The issue is that unless you either went to highschool or undergraduate in a specific province, then you probably won't get in. The Med schools all give preference to their locals.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by blankall

BC is adding a new school...in 2026.

Here's a list of all the schools and the spots they have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ools_in_Canada

One thing that will drastically increase her odds of getting into a Canadian school is to attend university in Ontario. Most provinces give preference to students who went to high school or university in their province.

Wish they would pursue some faster options, such as better recognition of foreign qualifications for doctors. Trying to find a family doctor in Vancouver feels like trying to find a unicorn.

The current state of the system is very frustrating in trying to deal with a complex condition. Took me ages just to find a doctor I liked and could repeatedly book with, as a walk-in not formally as a family doctor and usually with a 1-2 week wait, and just as I felt there was getting to be familiarity with everything I've been going through with long-covid, I went to book a new appointment and found he's left the province. So, back to square one.

I obviously don't blame doctors themselves. I think it's crazy GPs are basically running on a non-stop treadmill of 10-minute appointments on every health concern under the sun and can't keep up with demand, but I've recently found my thinking changing from "I should stay in Canada while sorting out my health issues" to "I need to get out of Canada to find care for my health issues". Meanwhile as far as I know Canada is full of doctors who came here as immigrants and are capable professionals among whom I would be delighted to find a primary care physician, but they're not allowed to provide that care.