A solution to our doctor shortage starts here at home

Students only have limited input on where they go for their residency programs, and at the end of the day, the Canadian Residency Matching Program (CARMS) uses a computer algorithm to decide who goes where, based on input from the students and residency programs.

The province’s mass shortage of health care professionals is no secret.

Forming the nucleus of this shortage is the steadily declining number of primary health care providers – family doctors. Given the fact that every spring, Memorial University’s Medical School churns out approximately 80 graduates, why do we have such a shortage? Shouldn’t the brand new, fresh doctors be sent directly to the most underserved areas of the province to help care for our vastly rural population?

Maybe. But it's more complex.

The four years of medical school in Newfoundland and Labrador are long, tedious and require great financial and personal commitment and sacrifice. While the notion that MUNL’S tuition costs are heavily subsidized by the province is becoming evermore untrue, it is even more untrue for learners of the medical school. They pay significantly for their studies.

The first two years are composed almost entirely of traditional lectures, studying, and examinations, with the final two years being almost exclusively clinical rotations. Onthe-job training, essentially. However, in addition to their OTJ training, students are also working on rigorous applications for their residency programs, which is a period of time after they graduate where they work as doctors in their chosen speciality, whether it be family medicine, radiology, obstetrics and gynecology, or internal medicine, for example, fine-tuning their skills as specialists.

Students only have limited input on where they go for their residency programs, and at the end of the day, the Canadian Residency Matching Program (CARMS) uses a computer algorithm to decide who goes where, based on input from the students and residency programs.

So, this CARMS system is using a computer to take our doctors and scatter them across the country? Let’s just unsubscribe MUNL from the program!

Not quite that simple. A rough estimate of recent classes would put a slight majority of the approximately 80 students staying in Newfoundland and Labrador. As stated above, they do have some input.

There is also an influx of students from outside the province who come as resident doctors. Removing MUNL from CARMS would shut the door for this possibility, and we can not afford to lose out on any potential residents.

The issue more so lies in the fact that the percentage of these students who choose family medicine is rather low, and the percentage who want to practice in rural N.L. is even lower. Let’s be honest, rural living isn’t for everyone.

Now, we shouldn’t just brand all of the students as townies who just want to stay and practice at the Health Sciences Centre. Every now and then, there are students who come from rural N.L. and want to return. These are the people that we need more of.

Fair enough, but how do we get them and why aren’t there more?

The most plausible answer to the provinces primary health care woes is tantamount to the answer to this question – there needs to be a significant, serious effort by the provincial government to develop doctors from a grassroots level.

High school students, even those at the junior high level, need to be shown and encouraged that going to an institution like MUNL, getting a degree, and then going on to medical school and returning home is a real possibility.

They need to be shown that being a doctor can be a rewarding profession, both personally and fiscally.

They can live at home with, and then have, their families, and have any of the cars, trucks, and power toys that they could ever dream of. They can still go hunting and fishing with their buddies. They can own and operate their own businesses and be their own bosses.

This is what we’re missing: encouragement to pursue higher education.

For some time now, the public school system, whether intentionally or not, has pushed skilled trades as the most logical and sensible career path. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with trades. I work in a trade-adjacent field, but they aren’t necessarily a golden goose.

A grassroots development of doctors would provide the province with a long-term solution and would ensure that we have quality, home-grown family doctors for years to come.

This is serious. We are reaching a tipping point where there sometimes is a lack of attending doctors to train the residents.

It isn’t just this province, however. Over 100 family medicine CARMS seats went empty this year, nation-wide. We need to get out in front of this crisis while we can, and we have the people, resources, and facilities to do so.

Our way out of this crisis passes through MUNL, and I am confident that with the right guidance, administration, and help from government, we can all persevere and emerge from this crisis.

Kaden Clarke St. John’s