How a community-centred take on new med schools could help Canada’s family doctor shortage – CBC

Innovative approach to medical training meant to address growing gaps in primary care

Apr 25, 2023

A visionary Canadian physician believes three new medical schools opening in Canada will flip the country’s medical training model on its head to focus more on family medicine.

“It takes a community to raise a physician,” said Dr. Roger Strasser, interim dean of the new Simon Fraser University Medical School and founding dean of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM).

“The carrot is positive role models and mentors and a sense of excitement that a career as a family physician is really the way to go because it’s a rewarding and satisfying career,” he said. “It’s hard to learn that if your main clinical learning is in a big acute teaching hospital.”

Just over a century ago, a major shift in medical school education in North America moved the teaching and training of new doctors from communities into universities, where they learned basic sciences; and hospitals, where they got hands-on experience in patient care and research.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canadian-medical-school-training-changes-1.6820474