‘How on earth’ can we free up doctors to teach at medical school, asks Health P.E.I. CEO – CBC
‘Massive backfilling’ required to free up doctors to teach: CEO
Feb 02, 2023
A medical school at the University of Prince Edward Island may eventually help to cure a doctor shortage in the province, but it won’t come without some shorter-term challenges, a standing committee on health and social development heard Wednesday.
Dr. Michael Gardam, CEO of Health P.E.I., said staffing the medical school is at the forefront of those challenges.
“Right now we’re asking all of our doctors to do 150 per cent clinical work. So how on earth are we going to start pulling back our doctors to enable them to do teaching, without massive backfilling?”
Nobody at the committee meeting said having a medical school on P.E.I. was necessarily a bad idea.
But during the presentation, the Opposition health critic Michele Beaton suggested the proposed medical school was seen more as a political promise than a practical health-care strategy.
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-medical-school-gardam-1.6733487
