Part of the “Best Place on Earth”, Christy?

Why is it Christy Clark’s fault that nobody wants to go to Ft. St. James?

Agreed, this problem has been around a lot longer than she’s been premier. It would be nice if some government adressed it properly though.

If you went to university for 6 or 7 years, would you live anywhere north of Kamloops ? Seriously….?

Train them in the North and they will stay in the North. Right???

Using middle fingers logic, one would have to wonder why then would any one with any type of degree live or work north of the California Oregon border.

Nakusp is making a house available to a Dr for a year for the price of the utilities.

furtree :
Oregon State Beavers….# 1 in my heart

“If you went to university for 6 or 7 years”

If that were the case you would not be a graduate doctor in Canada these days.

The typical minimum is a 4 year post grade 12 undergraduate degree followed by 4 years of medical school.

Some bright students do get in with 3 years of undergraduate studies. At the same time many end up applying with a completed undergrad degree, with high marks, and do not get in on the first try and even the second try, keep on taking more courses and even a masters and finally get in. Most applicants never get in.

As far as going to the north, it is actually more about going to remote, small communities. The absolutely do not have to be in the north. In fact, there are more of those communities in the south than in the north. Draw a one hour drive circle around the other cities in this province the size of PG and there are many more Fort St. James types of communities over ALL of the communities in this province..

I do not know all of the details of the doctors who left Ft. St. James in 2012. I do know one who is a relatively young doctor from another country who moved to PG to practice here. I suspect that may not be all that uncommon.

“Train them in the North and they will stay in the North. Right???”

I see no reason to have any more than one University in BC and that should be UBC in Vancouver.

Totally ridiculous to educate/train anyone else in any place that is smaller than that city. They can all spread out from there. Hopefully we do not lose anyone to any other province/country, either, otherwise we may have to move the University out of province. ;-)

BTW, I mean the above to refer to ALL degree programs, not just medical. Far too inefficient to educate in so many locations. Just think of all the Sports Centres, Libraries, Student Union buildings, Lecture rooms, etc., that are either underutilized or not even there in the first place thus depriving the students. Not to speak about the full diversity of programs that all students in larger University have the opportunity and advantage to be exposed to.

Those educated in small town universities simply do not have the same exposure to the whole spectrum of thinking and diversity that a modern society needs, especially in small communities.

Gus:”I see no reason to have any more than one University in BC and that should be UBC in Vancouver.”

Kelowna, Kamloops and others (SFU) would as heartily disagree with that as I do!

One monopoly? No competition? Wow!

PG, I think gus’s post went right over your head. You might want to re-read.

Let’s go back to the old supply demand equation from Economics 101. If you want to increase supply – pay more money. So if you want more doctors in the North, pay more money for practicing in the North. The more remote/small the community – the more you get paid.

Or, reduce demand. I’ve got a family doctor whose basic attitude is I will do anything I can to help you, if you’ll help yourself. So when I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, he told me to lose weight and get my butt off the couch – and I did, and I’m enjoying life more for it. Now I see him maybe once a year for an intimate moment for a DRE. Reduced demand, means he has more time for other patients.

Now let’s look at Ft. St James. It’s a community that’s half first nations, half not. First nations typically have terrible health problems from drug/alcohol abuse, diabetes, poor diet. Would you want to be the doctor who deals day in and day out with people who can’t/won’t help themselves – I wouldn’t, not for any amount of money. I realize the First Nations problem is incredibly complex, but it doesn’t change the fact, they need a higher level of health care per person, and they can burn out almost anyone.

So Fort St. James only solution, is more money, to get more doctors to work in that environment. And maybe that’s really not so much to ask when you consider the vast amount of tax dollars flowing into Victoria’s coffers from a resource based town like Fort St. James because of Mining and Forestry.

Maybe a better solution is not to move the doctors, but move the people. Heck, let’s all move down to the lower mainland, and employers can just fly us to work each day to our mill jobs, mining jobs, etc. No need for any of us to suffer in the cold :)

Gus. Up until a few years ago, all the Doctors were trained at UBC.

I doubt if training them in Kelowna, Victoria, Prince George, makes any difference to the actual distribution of Doctors through out BC. If it did, then we must be getting close to solving the Doctor shortage problem.

Like most things in Prince George, the hype,hyperbole, and bombastic language far exceeds the actual result of any project. None of the projects in the last 10/15 years in Prince George would stand up to close scrutiny.

People in Prince George think that it makes good sense for people in Pr Rupert, Kitimat, Terrace, to travel 450/500 miles and go to a University in Prince George, however it is not *ok* to travel 500 miles, and go to a University in Vancouver. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Seems like a double standard to me. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

It would be interesting to see how many people in North Central BC actually attend University in Victoria, UBC, Simon Fraser. It would be an interesting number.

Insofar as Doctors go, I beleive that the Doctors in Fraser Lake are actually paid a salary by the Government which would earn them a net income comparable to what they would get in a larger centre if they set up a practice. In addition with at least two doctors available, they are able to get time off for holidays, etc; The Fraser Lake model seems to work. In fact some people from Prince George go to Fraser Lake to see the Doctors. Interesting.

Another problem that happened to Fort St James is minor surgeries were stopped in the FSJ hospital. By minor surgeries I mean no surgeries at all including emergerncy surgeries like emergency C-sections. We have always had problems attracting and retaining Doctors but, by closing the surgery department Doctors and Nurses who came to small comunity hospitals and wanted to advance their carreers stopped coming as there was no longer an opportunity to advance a young Doctor/Nurse career in a small hospital like FSJ. Having a Hospital in FSJ that is no more than a clinic will and continue to hinder attracting Doctors/Nurses. I think the Provincial government needs to make a descision on whether it wants Hospitals in small remote communities or not. Of course closing the Hospital and calling it a clinic which it currently is operating under is never politically popular, and by sitting on the fence and still calling the FSJ Hospital a Hospital is the safe thing to do politically.

“Gus. Up until a few years ago, all the Doctors were trained at UBC.”

No kidding? Could’a fooled me.

BTW, my posts about one University in BC for ALL university level post secondary education was tongue-in-cheek. In fact, I feel the direct opposite of that. BC has taken far too long to seed communities our size with Universities. BC chose a path similar to Quebec with its CGEPs by bringing Community Colleges to smaller communities who were able to provide 2 year University Transfer programs. Neither took the approach of Ontario which included technical colleges and Universities in communities the size of Prince George – Peterborough, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, all have had both institutions since the 1960s. BC never had a policy of training its own. Even with the increase in university seats under the current government, we do not have enough seats to train our own, although it is much improved. We still have to rely on importing educated and trained people from other provinces and other countries.

When technology, and especially when methodology changes over the years, one does not have to stay with the same delivery model.

I do not know how many readers are aware that there was a recent change to the way medical doctors are educated. It was created through McMaster University and promoted by them and McGill University and has jumped across the Atlantic Ocean to Britain. The USA is still looking at it to see whether they want to adopt the same new methodology.

The key result is many more hours in clinics … ie. hospitals, which is where the key action is. All students are sent all over the country for clinics. Our friend, who just graduated this spring went as far north and east as Iqaluit for several weeks.

The emphasis is almost totally off “book learning” and into practical learning.

To study, they work as teams supporting each other. No doubt, they work using today’s communication technology.

While the local hospital has changed its name to indicate that it is a teaching hospital, the truth of the matter is that all hospitals, including the smallest and remotest ones are teaching hospitals in that they have students participating in clinics at those hospitals. They receive a practical education and training these days that those who were students some 30 years ago could only dream of.

Will it cause all students attending a program at a satellite university of the UBC Vancouver campus to settle into practicing in a remote community? Of course not. It also will not prevent students attending at the UBC Vancouver campus from settling into practicing in a remote community.

Will it cause more students to go to remote communities when they can open a practice?

I believe it will, simply because there are more graduates. I also believe that because more have experienced smaller communities during their education, and possibly more have been accepted from small communities, that there will be an increase greater than the simple percentage increase in the number of seats.

However, the numbers are probably not quite in yet. It takes 4 years in medical school and say 3 to 8 or so years as a resident to get a fully licensed medical doctor though the education/residency. So, 7 to 12 years after the first class entered a program at a satellite location before the first numbers will come out. I would want 5 years of numbers before a reasonable conclusion can be made. The low period is for family physicians and the high period for specialists.

Students entered the Northern Medical Program in 2004. So 2010/11 the first family physicians would have emerged. Some specialists will not be fully licensed until say 2015/16. So, we have some very early indicators for family physicians and none for specialists at this time.

People like Palopu are pretending they have the number, but they lack an understanding of medical training in today’s world and the length of time it takes to get some meaningful figures. But hey, details. Who cares about details?

Gus. You state that there are more graduates, what do you base this on. If your right and there are in fact more graduates, I think you would also find that in certain areas, like Vancouver Island, the Okanogan, and Greater Vancouver area, there is a corresponding increase in population, and therefore a need for more doctors.

The reverse is true in North Central BC. Most communities are shrinking in population, or at best holding their own, however they are not increasing. At best you could say that there is an increase in seniors, and therefore a need for more doctors in that specific area.

So, why would an increase in the number of graduates lead to you beleive that there would be a corresponding increase in the number of Doctors in the interior.?

We can wait for your numbers in the future, however a few casual conversations with people who are now going through to be doctors would probably indicate the number who actually plan to stay in this area. My guess is that there will be no significant changes in doctor availability, in the interior.

Time will tell.

Palopu wrote: Gus. You state that there are more graduates, what do you base this on?”

Frankly, Palopu, I should not even be bothering to answer such a stupid question by a person who Ido not think is all that stupid. But I guess we all have a blonde moment every now and then, me included. This is definitely one of your blonde moments.

The simple answer is, that I base it on the fact that the number of seats open to students studying medicine in BC have doubled in the last ten years by increasing the first year seats at UBC and adding an additional three satellite programs, each with 32 first year seats.

The Northern Medical Program, along the Island Medical Program were the first and the Okanagan program was the recent addition.

Luckily, if you read the ENTIRE report on this site, you will do a major part of the catch up on this topic.
http://www.thephoenixnews.com/articles/39916

BTW, I expect the attrition rate from incoming student to graduate might also go down slightly with the new program of smaller classes and learning in teams and emphasis on practical skills.

There are many new things happening here that will be scrutinized by UBC, other Universities as well as the various accreditation bodies.

Do I think that the province has taken the right steps in increasing the number of seats open to UBC MD degrees?

No, definitely not from a quality education point of view. It is a monopoly.

BC is large enough to have two separate MD programs at two separate institutions. I think UVic should have been considered for that. Alberta has two separate shools.

Ontario and quebec, of couse, have many. In fact, Ontario explored going the same way as BC did by attaching a school to an existing program for the northern/rural program. hey decided against it and took two years longer than BC to establish a new, independent medical school operated jointly by universities in Thunder Bay and Sudbury.

It will be interesting to see which one will be more successful. Being from the northern part of that area, theirs is much more sensitive to First Nations as well as trilingual issues.

That is the thing about more than one school. Innovation tends to much higher in such conditions.

UBC has 288 first year seats
Calgary has 170
U of A has 250

Thus, Alberta has about 420 seats for incoming sudents against our 288.

Bad enough sounding. When you look at the ratio of population to seats it is
BC = 15,2755/seat
Albera = 8,680/seat … almost twice as many.

Ontario has a ratio of roughly 13,500/first year seat. They have undergone a recent expansion of close to 40% as well. They have gone to a satellite campus concept as well even in the more populated southern Ontario region.

From one Ontario web site: “Community-based undergraduate campuses allow medical students to take much of their education in smaller urban centres, which increases the likelihood that these students will ultimately practice in those communities.”

BC is doing nothing all that new and will continue to be an importer of medical doctors for some time to come.

BTW, the main thing to take away from this? It is not all about the north!! That is just the way it gets communicated here.

The Fort St. James’ of this world are the hardest nuts to crack.

The broader issue is distance to travel to nearest doctor and emergency care. ALL areas of the province have various levels of the same basic concern and each one needs individua approaches that fit the particular situation.

One approach does not fit all.