Admission Requirements For Northern Medical Program ‘Rigorous’
Prince George, BC – The Dean of Education at UBC’s Faculty of Medicine is countering a news report suggesting the Northern Medical Program’s admission standards are lower than those in Vancouver, Victoria, and Kelowna.
The CBC News report on Friday evening said applicants to the NMP were not required to meet the same requirements as the rest of UBC’s programs, weren’t required to complete medical entrance exams, and that a student’s suitability for living in northern BC far outweighed academic achievement. Quoting documents from an anonymous source, the story also said only six of the NMP’s 32 students last year ranked high enough for the other medical school locations.
Snadden was appointed the faculty’s Executive Associate Dean of Education last November, but he has led the NMP since its inception in 2004. He says the news story contained a lot of inaccuracies. The dean says there are four admission streams into the faculty: through the MD/PhD route, Aboriginal admissions, Northern admissions, and the regular stream. Dr. Snadden says they’re all rigorous and the output is the same.
He says all applicants to UBC’s medical programs must complete the medical entrance exams, or MCATs. And, in fact, in addition to meeting the standard criteria, applicants to the Northern Medical Program must also complete a Rural and Remote Suitability Survey to gauge a student’s connection to rural communities.
"All of our students have to meet minimal academic standards – so there’s a barrier that they have to get over before we admit them," says Dr. Snadden. "And we also look at a lot of other attributes and those attributes are just as important. It doesn’t just take academics to make a good physician." For the past decade, medical schools have been taking a more holistic approach in selecting applicants. Snadden says academics have only been 50-percent of the ‘score’ for many years at UBC.
He points out while the story looked at last year’s GPAs, there was a year when the entering GPA at the Northern Medical Program was higher than Victoria and Kelowna. Snadden says it varies from year to year and the differences are so marginal, they don’t make any difference. What is important is what the medical students leave with after four years, as they begin post-graduate residency training. "Absolutely, we clearly look at the exit statistics and there’s no difference in the academic or pass rates between the students in the north and the other two programs."
"The students are matched to programs all over Canada, so I’m very confident of the competencies and the abilities of our students from the Northern Medical Program when they graduate."
According to statistics from UBC, there has been a significant increase in the number of physicians practising in rural BC since the distributed medical program was established – from 1,770 in 2003-04, to 2,269 in 2009-10, a 28-percent increase. But the real ‘return-on-investment’ in the NMP has yet to be realized. More than 83-percent of students who have graduated from the MD undergrad program since 2008 are still in their residency, but UBC does have some first indications from those completing their two year residency for Family Medicine:
chart courtesy UBC Faculty of Medicine
More importantly at this early stage of ‘the game’ to Dr. Snadden, is number of students from the region who are entering the program. "About half of them actually come from northern BC and about 80- to 85-percent of the students are from rural backgrounds," he says. "So, for me, that’s a really significant success."
"We’ve got students from Prince Rupert right over to Dawson Creek and they’ve grown up in these towns and now they’re studying medicine – ten years ago that didn’t happen, so I think we’ve had a big impact on the north."
Comments
all this noise about this because a journalist from CBC decides to do a fluff piece with no real research. Perhaps we should be looking at the integrity of admission standards and education people receive in journalism schools these days….
Perhaps we should see the credentials of the “journalist” from CBC …. if he/she is a journalist … what was the incomig GPA and the measure of output …. so far he/she gets an F on this assignment unless it was meant to be controversial …..
Of course, anywhere else no one would even care.
Just rode up an elevator in the GVRD with a fellow who was asking about the population of PG .. he had heard it was the third largest City in BC …
I mean with that as an indicator of the understanding of people in general about the “world outside my backyard”, who really cares about such trivia? It’s the “me” thing again … “I’m alright Jack”
No kidding. What a slap in the face to all those young people in the program now. CBC should be ashamed.
Why do people in the lower mainland tend to constantly denigrate PG? I was down south cooling my jets in the hot tub (yes, ironically I was) and the two folks asked me where I was from. When I told them they pretty much jumped out of the hot tub. Well, not exactly, but the intent sure was there.
BTW, we should perpetuate that rumour about PG …. “yeah, we are about to become #2 after the GVRD …. they never come north of HWY 1 anyway ….;-)
To say that 10 years ago people from the North didnt study medicine is a bit of a leap.
Where are the stats to back up that statement. I would venture to say that there were a large number of people from the Interior of the Province who Practiced Medicine at UBC, or some other University in Canada. Just because they didnt go to UNBC means nothing. I had a few friends from Pr George, that became doctors years ago, before UNBC existed
If you want to be a doctor you go where you have to.
You can rest assured that there is some truth in the CBC Article.
As Shakespeare said. **He doth protest to much**
Have a nice day.
I’m more concerned with their marks coming out than the marks that got them in!
Oh there may be truth in the CBC report … BUT … is it balanced??? THAT is what quality journalism is all about.
First …. we do not educate enough doctors in this entire country to serve the entire country. That is why we import and have to import doctors …and just think, those doctors come from countries which typically have less money to educate doctors than we have.
BC has been one of the worst offenders if not the worst offender. With the new seats in BC, I do not know whether we are doing any better.
I think we should have started a new medical school. Problem is, we do not have well established universities outside of the lower mainland such as Ontario, which did start a new medical school with Thunder Bay and Sudbury cooperating in that effort.
I actually do not care what marks a doctor I use received.
I care about how many procedures he/she has done and how many of them have been successful, especially in comparison to other doctors. Best in the city, best in the province, best in the country.
The more critical the diagnosis and treatment are to the risk to my life and lifestyle, the better I want that doctor to be compared to other doctors.
Here are the admission requirements for Canadian medical schoolshttp://www.afmc.ca/pdf/2012_ad_bk.pdf
Go for it! Figure out which is the weakest requirement and which is the strongest.
This is what it states for the UBC program”
âThe 288 positions are allocated to four campuses: 192 at the Vancouver Fraser Medical Program; 32 at the Island Medical Program (in Victoria); 32 at the Northern Medical Program (in Prince George); 32 at the Southern Medical Program (in Kelowna).
All positions are filled based on the same selection criteria; however, a Rural/Remote Suitability tool is also used to assign students to the Northern Medical Program.
The people of Prince George rarely get the information they need to make informed decisions.
Firstly lets remember that Doctors make their living by the number of patients they treat. If we had a huge influx of doctors, we would have a corresponding decrease in the earnings of doctors.
Our problem is not necessarily a shortage of doctors, its more of a shortage of doctors in remote areas. (Contrary to popular beleive Prince George is remote)
Most people do not want to locate in areas like Pr Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, Houston, Burns Lake, MacKenzie, etc; etc; unless they have to, in order to get a job.
With doctors the situation is different. They can hang out their shingle in the greater Vancouver area, the Southern Interior, or Vancouver Island, and make a good living, and thats what most of them do.
In addition there is a limited number of doctors that can enter Universities each year. This number is controlled by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the BC Government, and the Universities.
A number of years ago in an interview one of the leading doctors in BC stated that people should get used to the doctor shortage, because it will not be changing. The reason is simple. Too many doctors means a decrease in income. Doctors are not going to spend 10 years of their lives becoming doctors, to get paid the same as a civil servant, or a union worker.
If you could get doctors to practice in the Northern climes, you could solve part of the problem, because it would reduce the number of doctors in the lower mainland. As it now stands the number of doctors allowed to practice in BC is controlled, and will continue to be controlled.
So as the good doctor said. Get used to the shortage, because its not going to change.
.”Our problem is not necessarily a shortage of doctors, its more of a shortage of doctors in remote areas.”
Believe me Palopu … talk to someone in a large City in Canada. Canada has a shortage of doctors!! Period!!
Any statistic on the number of people per doctor for the world will tell you that.
“(Contrary to popular beleive Prince George is remote)”
Not when it comes to people per doctor. We now have a medical school; have had a regional hospital and now a teaching hospital; and a cancer clinic about to open ….
I understand we will soon get a heart unit which means that travel for several procedures to VGRH and St. Pauls will no longer be required. I would expect that intially doctors will commute here, but the facilities are up here.
Might want to watch this from the NMP students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38kHXI32iKE&feature=related
And this from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VOfw7qJQlc
And what some call the best med school in Canada … McMaster. …. a 3 year 12 months/year school instead of 4 years …. using PBL = problem based learning (hands on instead of book learning)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DukDDgi68OQ&feature=related
Some stats from around 2000 of medical doctors per 1,000 population. Twice as many doctors per 1,000 in Italy than in Canada, for instance.
South Africa has one third as many doctors per 1,000 as Canada has ….yet they send doctors to places like PG.
2Cuba5.91
7Italy4.20
13Israel3.82
17Switzerland3.60
23Germany3.40
25France3.37
34Norway3.10
41Ireland2.79
46Fin2.60
47Aus2.50
52USA2.30
58Can2.10
119South Africa0.77
“Too many doctors means a decrease in income. Doctors are not going to spend 10 years of their lives becoming doctors, to get paid the same as a civil servant, or a union worker”
That depends on the person. Talk to many of the YOUNG docs out there now. They are quite happy to make a quarter of what some of the “old boys club” docs make. Many of them would gladly trade the income for a personal life.
As for your next point, you do realize that many doctors work as public servants right? Do you think the docs at the BC Cancer Agency, Health Canada and various research institutes only graduated with high school? Heck, the public service is FULL of people with many years of post secondary schooling behind them. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, psychologists, scientists, etc. These folks certainly do not make the same money as their private sector counterparts, but it’s certainly enough to have a decent living and quality of life, which is more than can be said for many of the private sector docs out there right now. Which made the better choice?
NMG wrote: “These folks certainly do not make the same money as their private sector counterparts”
I would not be so quick to say that.
Here are the annual bluebook lists for charges to the MSP, which includes charges by MDs.
http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/msp/financial_sHere ent.html
I would say that based on the family physicians in PG a range of $250,000 to $350,000 is fair as charges which would have to pay for all expenses of running an office including salary of receptionist(s), office rent, office expenses, malpractice and other insurance, pension plan, professional continuing education/conferences, etc. Take home salary is then around $200,000.
Here are salaries for some MDs in public service at Northern Health.//www.fin.gov.bc.ca/psec/disclosuredocs/execcompdisclosure10-11/NorthernHealth.pdf
$250,000 to just over $300,000 and they have no expenses and compensation includes pension plan.
Going to conferences and other professional continuing education is paid by the government.
I think one could make an argument that those people at Northern Health “should” be compensated in the same manner as specialists in the “private sector” would be. I imagine their level of experience, their responsibilities and the scope of their duties is much greater than that of a GP. Heck, it could even be greater than a specialist (overseeing the Northern Cancer Program as opposed to working as part of it for example).
And of course, specialists would likely make considerably more than the GP’s or the people at Northern Health.
I wonder what the total compensation difference is between the pharmacist working at PGRH and the pharmacist working at Walmart? I imagine it would be quite the eye opener for some people to see.
Comments for this article are closed.