There's growing opposition to making family doctor training longer
CBC
The College of Family Physicians of Canada is being asked to "pause, hold and maybe stop" its plans to increase the time it takes to train a family doctor from two years to three — as some medical students, family doctors and provincial health ministers express their opposition.
"Our class, the class of 2027, is going to be the first that's impacted by this change in residency length," said Yash Verma, a first-year medical student at the University of Toronto.
"It feels like that's something that's out of our control and that we have no power to change at all."
Verma said he first heard about the plan from CBC News in September. Alarmed, he asked his classmates for their thoughts.
He says he heard a recurring theme: "If this third year were to happen, they would not become family doctors."
"One medical student was stating how because of this extra third year, he didn't think that there was enough of a gap to justify going into family medicine versus another residency program, such as internal medicine, which is five years," Verma said.
"What we want most is to make sure that our patients are healthy. And what concerns me about this extra year is that it may exacerbate the already present family doctor shortage."
The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) told CBC News about the proposed change last month. Its acting CEO says it's designed to prepare doctors for more complex cases.
But the Canadian Federation of Medical Students says it has not been consulted and does not support a longer training program.
It wants the college to consider "the potential difficulties that a 36-month training program may pose for students, especially in the context of the current nationwide primary care crisis," according to a statement.
At a time when one in five Canadians don't have a family doctor, provincial health ministers are also opposed to mandatory longer training. They would have to fund the extra year.
Becoming a family doctor in Canada is currently a 10-year process. A two-year family medicine residency currently comes after eight years of education: Four years of undergraduate schooling and four years of medical school.
In a Zoom call during their recent meeting in Charlottetown, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix told reporters that he and his provincial counterparts "put it in the statement unanimously that residency requirements should stay at two years."
"So this is not the direction we're going with respect to health, human resources," he said.
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