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snakesoup88 t1_jdjnltr wrote

Reply to comment by Derpazor1 in [OC] Number of physicians per 1000 residents by giteam

Are you bleeding doctors because they can make more money in US? Or on YouTube?

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broyoyoyoyo t1_jdjtxou wrote

That's a contributing factor. The main factor is that our population is growing at a very high rate, and the rate of new graduating doctors can't keep up.

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HappiHappiHappi t1_jdjzj01 wrote

Yeah and probably having the same elitism problem were having in Australia. One expert recommended doubling the number of training places both for university and then in graduate internships but some people then started going on about "lesser quality applicants" getting in without acknowledging that despite a large growth in population the number of training places has remained fairly stagnant for the last 20 years and that even with doubling the number of places it would still be ridiculously competitive.

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broyoyoyoyo t1_jdk9qwe wrote

Oh yeah, sounds familiar for sure. There are some legitimate bottlenecks for increasing the residency spots (the number of residency spots you can open is limited by the number of doctors you already have), but there's a lot of other nonsense. We bring in a lot of immigrant doctors and give them no streamlined way to convert their credentials so they can work here, so a lot of them just end up driving taxis.

Medical school here is insanely competitive, so much so that a lot of brilliant students don't bother with it at all (you risk doing 4 years in Life/Health Science and then getting fucked when you don't get into Med School).

Not to mention that it takes an absurdly long to become a doctor here. 4 years undergrad + 4 years med school + 3 years internship + another 2 years internship if you want to specialize. Why don't we streamline the process by cutting out the undergrad like most countries? Because, like you say, some think it'll dilute the quality of our doctors, which is nonsense since it takes less time to become a doctor in most countries where healthcare is just as good.

Holding the profession up on too high a pedestal is preventing Canadians from receiving adequate healthcare.

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TheProfessionalEjit t1_jdljevw wrote

We had that bollocks here in NZ too. Another reason given for not increasing the number of training facilities was that once qualified, the doctors & nurses would go to another country; no thought whatsoever about bonding or writing off student loans if they stayed for x years, just "nah".

At the same time non-elective procedures are being cancelled because we don't have the staff...

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Beat-the-heat t1_jdr3p00 wrote

>but some people then started going on about "lesser quality applicants" getting in

Aren't a large number of doctors in Australia basically just Indians who migrate then pass the medical exam there? wouldn't local training still be preferable?

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OneLessFool t1_jdkbo0b wrote

No, that's only a small part of it.

It's because we stopped expanding the number of medical graduates and residencies (not just doctors either) to keep up with population growth. 40 years ago we had over 6 doctors per 1000 people. But then we started voting for people like Mulroney and Chrétien and it was all downhill from there as we slowly destroyed public services and crown corps in favour of neoliberal economics.

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ceaton604 t1_jdl2px9 wrote

It’s worse: in 1992 the feds and provinces got together and agreed to actually reduce the numbers to save money. Yes, they went back on that deal but it led to the deficit we are still in.

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Disco_Ninjas_ t1_jdktszq wrote

The medical schools control the number of docs like the diamond companies control the flow of diamonds to keep wages high and physicians valuable.

Pharmacy schools do not, which is why pharmacists get treated like shit.

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