When we say 30% of our graduates are working in the North does that include Prince George. Seems to me Prince George is **North** hence the name UNBC.

So what **North Territory** are we looking at?? All towns and from 100 Mile to Ft Nelson to Atlin to Prince Rupert, Kitimat, etc; etc;???

So over a period of seven years we have 67 graduates working somewhere in Northern BC or to put it another way 156 grads are working somewhere else.

Would be interesting to see how many of the graduates from Victoria, and Kelowna Medical Programs are practicing in the North, or graduates of UBC for that matter.

{Prince George, B.C. – Northern Health says an error has been discovered in the pre-cleaning process for flexible endoscopes at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. They say it covers the time period from 2012 until it was discovered last month. Endoscopes are used for colonoscopies, upper gastric scopes, and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatogram (ERCP) exams.}

Wow… I can only hope the students come Doctors, Nurses, Lab Professionals and other Medical Professionals don’t go down the complacency path our local “Teaching Hospital” has.

Golden Hour means: from the time the injury occurred till treatment is received should not exceed one hour, once the hour has past, the chances of full recovery or survival drop exponentially.
Triage means: worst first, not stack them up in the hallways.

I can’t help but wonder what other bad habits the students have learned here.

I’d just like to remind you that the Northern Medical Program, the Southern Medical Program and the Island Medical Program were created to provide additional medical training for students in B.C., because before that, the only other place was at UBC. With today’s technology, video conferencing etc. and using the Victoria, Kelowna and Prince George hospitals and others as training facilities to assist these students, it has opened up a whole new set of opportunities for them. The students eventually branch out to the smaller communities, particularly in their last few years, working under established doctors in hospitals and clinics throughout the province.

At no time are they expected to commit to any one area when they graduate, although there are often financial benefits in the form of partial student loan forgiveness etc. if they do.

We all choose to live where we are the happiest, whether that be for financial or employment opportunities in the area of expertise we wish to persue. A 32 yr old single doctor might be happier in the big city for now, but if/when he marries and starts a family, might think it’s a lot better lifestyle and more affordable to return to the places they grew up in, at a later date.

Give them time! Stop the negativity! Our hospital and our community is a heck of a lot better off now than we were before these programs.

mytwobits. What information do you have that conclusively shows that we are better off now than we were before these programs.

If you don’t know how many doctors come to the North from other areas, or how many go to other areas from here, how do you make a determination if these programs are working or not??

One of the reasons that these medical programs were started in Prince George, Victoria, Kelowna, was to take the pressure off the hospitals in the lower mainland that were providing all the training for the students that attended UBC. In fact if you were to look into the situation in detail you might find out that the medical profession gave the Province an ultimatum to come up with a program to reduce the time they spent in the lower mainland training students.

The result was the establishment of having Medical Programs in the North, Vancouver Island, and Kelowna.

As you are aware all these students do their first year at UBC and when they graduate they get their diploma’s from UBC, so the Medical Program is basically a UBC, Provincial Government program.

I have no idea how many doctors would have graduated from UBC if these other programs had not been started, however I suspect that overall there would not be a significant difference. Had we not changed the program, then I suspect we would have increased the number of students at UBC.

In any event the program seems to be working at some level. The problem is that Prince George seems to always want to take credit for everything, when in fact they had little to do with the overall implementation of this program.

How often do you hear the phrase **Train them on the Island and they will stay on the Island.** **Train them in the Southern. Interior and they will stay in the Southern Interior** I suggest not very often.

How often do you hear the phrase **Train them in the North and they will stay in the North** I hear it all the time. Hmmmmm.