A program offers training and education specifically on family medicine from the start of medical school, while bypassing administrative hurdles to residency.
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Education has a role to play in addressing the shortage of family doctors. A new program is designed specifically for comprehensive, community-based family practice.
A fundamental component for training health-care professionals is interacting with patients and families.
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Each encounter that health-care students have with patients and families helps them understand real-world patient needs. That means all Canadians have a role in educating future health-care providers.
Recruiting health workers from countries on the World Health Organization’s safeguard list without robust and reciprocal benefits for the countries sending them does not meet ethical standards.
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Recruiting internationally educated health workers is a key part of Canada’s proposed solution to the health worker crisis. But there are ethical questions about recruiting from foreign countries.
The 2023 budget is unlikely to do the one thing our health system needs: provide the funding for a new medical school to meet our growing need for locally trained doctors.
Niamh Humphries, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences
Ireland has a long history of doctor emigration, but something needs to be done to encourage doctor retention and return
Nurses of the University College Hospital protest in London on Feb. 6, 2023. The walkout is part of a wave of health worker strikes and demonstrations in recent months.
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U.K. health worker protests echo issues in Canada. They are also a harbinger of future labour disputes and systemic collapse if austerity, underinvestment and neglect of health workers continue.
Canada has a shortage of doctors. That’s why making it difficult for internationally trained doctors to practise here is so mystifying.
(Francisco Venancio, Unsplash)
Canada is sidelining qualified doctors while many Canadians struggle to find health care. Here’s what we can and must do better for internationally trained physicians.
The pathway for foreign doctors to practise in New Zealand is neither easy nor very fair, meaning an over-stretched health system is missing out on valuable expertise.
In addition to patient care, many doctors also have heavy administrative burdens, including insurance company requests and government forms that advocate for their patients’ needs, as well as all the challenges of running an office.
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Less than half of Canadians can see their doctor same-day, and millions don’t even have a family doctor. Improving access to care means providing doctors with the support they need to focus on patients.
With more health resources devoted to COVID-19, non-COVID patients may have unmet health-care needs, which predict poorer health in the future.
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With COVID-19 placing heavy demands on the health-care system, non-COVID patients may struggle to access care, putting women, people in poor health and those without a regular doctor at risk.
The house call remains a fundamental medical service in 2020.
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From preventing emergency visits to understanding the context of a patient’s health issues, house calls have value in a modern medical practice.
A national licence to practice may be one way to help address the lack of doctors in some regions, and to encourage telemedicine consultations.
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In Canada, regulation of professions usually falls under provincial jurisdiction, but there may be feasible models for a national licence for health-care professionals.
Don’t replace me!
Anthony Devlin/PA Wire/Press Association Images
The global game of supply and demand that lets UK doctors move abroad for better pay is the same force pushing down salaries at home.
If you need doctors to work in the country, you need a selection system that picks people with those values and commitments.
University of Exeter/Flickr
Three features of a medical school help predict where medical students will eventually work as doctors: selection, the curriculum, and the professionalism of the newly-qualified doctors.
Avocat, enseignant et chercheur associé en droit et politiques de la santé / Lawyer, lecturer and research associate in Health Law and Policy, Université de Sherbrooke