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Opinion Column
Published on May 27, 2024 • Last updated 33 minutes ago • 2 minute read
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Subject: “Super Clinic: A new direction for Kingston's doctor shortage,” May 25th.
As one of Kingston’s 32,000 residents, and millions across Canada, who live without a family doctor, I strongly hope to see the severe shortage of general practitioners (GPs) addressed. With that in mind, I too applaud the City’s proposal to turn the Extendicare site on Queen Mary Road into a “super clinic.”
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That being said, I also have in mind what I think are reasonable prescriptions to address the shortage of family doctors locally and in other cities, towns and small communities around the state.
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Six of Canada's 17 medical schools are in Ontario, including one at Queen's University. These schools graduate about 2,900 new doctors each year, but less than a third choose a career in general medicine.
In Ontario, medical students pay around $27,300 in tuition fees per year. This is the highest in Canada, but still only a fraction of the total cost of that student's education per year. The actual figures are not easy to find (if they are available, I was unable to find them online). Either way, taxpayers (you and me) foot the bulk of the bill for medical students' education, yet when it comes to receiving basic healthcare, many of us are not getting what we pay for. With that in mind, I would argue that we can begin to solve this problem by changing the terms under which students are given the privilege of attending medical school, because it is a privilege (just as attending a post-secondary institution is a privilege).
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For the sake of argument, let's say that every medical school has 100 vacancies in the first year of study. Why couldn't a certain percentage of those vacancies be reserved for students who want to become general practitioners? Then a community in need of a family doctor (Kingston, Brockville, Belleville, Sharbot Lake, etc.) could sponsor a student (or a few) and pay all or a large portion of the student's tuition fees in exchange for that student signing a contract to work in that community for a certain period of time (say 6 or 7 years). They would do so in a clinic established and run by the local government and staffed by a medical team consisting of a doctor, nurse practitioner, nurses, and physiotherapists.
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Local officials could negotiate with local medical schools for the right to sponsor students on a one-time or regular basis, which would be much less costly and more efficient than the current doctor-recruitment system, in which localities compete to attract medical professionals.
The changes I am proposing would also benefit all medical students — they would graduate with little to no student loan debt and be guaranteed jobs in supportive, welcoming communities. This would be a win-win recipe for better health care in Kingston and across our province.
Ken Cuthbertson
Kingston
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