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A patient sounds a bit short with a subtle decrease in his strength.
Diagnosis? It could literally be anything, says Dr. Mike Allan, CEO of the Faculty of Family Physics of Canada.
Subtle changes, as a slight difference in a person’s behavior, can be more difficult for doctors A heart attack.
Family doctors do not focus on a specific care area. Rather, they are experts in taking into account the whole patient, said Allan. “That’s where the family doctor thrives.”
But an estimate 6.5 million Canadians Do not have a family doctor or a practicing nurse for regular medical care, who raid, who has trained with Canadian forces and has also worked as a civil doctor, called “beyond sad and frustrating.”
Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, cardiologist and professor of Medicine at Queen University in Kingston, Ontario, called him amazing. In a country committed to universal medical care and dedicate massive resources to medical education, he says it is a mystery that we are in this link.
The new book of Sanfilippo, The doctors we need: imagine a new path for the recruitment of doctors, training and supportExplore the root causes.
“Our system for medical education and for the production of doctors has not evolved with the needs of society,” he said.
Now, three new programs for family medicine are on their way to start in September. The three new programs for the family medicine of the Deans of Canada, at Simon Fraser University in Surrey, BC, the Metropolitan University of Toronto in Brampton, Ontario, and the University of Prince Eduardo Island in Charlottetown to meet the needs by changing training and change to focus on team attention.
Canada is losing its family doctors for exhaustion and is creating a primary care crisis. Can a new program prioritize the recruits of family doctors to help solve scarcity? Nick Purdon of The National has special access to the University of Queen’s and the program of the school of Medicine of Lakeridge Health to see how students are preparing for the realities they will face at work.
In team care, family doctors work interdependently with a team that goes from practicing nurses to pharmacists and social workers to provide primary care to a list of patients.
He Canada Family Physicians He says that team care helps to provide continuity and accessibility of patients, which in turn helps them live healthier and more full lives.
- This Sunday, Field check through Question: How are you dealing without a family doctor? What impact has you had on your health? Fill This form And it could appear on the program or that your comment reads in the air.
Dr. David Price, dean of the SFU Faculty of Medicine, said that the British Columbia Government commissioned that his team created a school focused on primary care.
“I don’t think there is another school in Canada that has a really relentless approach in primary care and training,” said Price. “What we are trying to do is produce medical students who are more likely to enter primary care specialties,” of which family medicine is the main one along with pediatrics and psychiatry.
The training in the community must match the growing demands that are imposed on family doctors, which all educators recognized have changed since they trained decades ago.

“When I graduated from the School of Medicine, there [were] Two types of insulin and perhaps a type of oral drug to reduce blood sugar, “the price recalled.” Now, there are dozens of different types. Understand what to use and how to use it and what are the complications, what are the side effects: it really is much more complex. “
Longer patient visits are required
Patients themselves are also more complex, he said, which means that they are often handling several diseases or complicated circumstances at the same time, such as mental health problems or precarious homes.
Look | Can a new program prioritize the recruits of family doctors to help solve scarcity?
Until 2021, Price presided over the Department of Family Medicine at the McMaster School of Medicine in Hamilton, Ontario.
“A visit to the patient does not take the 10 or 12 minutes it used to,” said Price, and said that people now also tend to live longer.
Despite the challenges faced by family doctors, research points to its importance.
Several published studies In Canadaand USA. Suggest that patients, and medical care systems benefit from having a family doctor. When those with chronic disease have a family doctor, They visit the emergency department and enter the hospital less frequently. TO Population -based study of 2019 He suggested that an increase of 10 family doctors per 100,000 people in the United States increased life expectancy by 51.5 days, while others found a link with Better results.
Given those demands, another new school is rethinking the typical or six weeks long month Family Medicine Rotations.
Cooperative Time in Family Medicine
“Six weeks may not be enough to have an idea of what family medicine is about,” said Dr. Teresa Chan, dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Vice President of Medical Affairs of the Metropolitan University of Toronto.
“We are building in a primary care approach in our undergraduate curriculum to obtain an early exposure before their clinical rotations,” said Chan, comparing these practical periods with “Cooperative for Physicians.”
On the other hand, TMU plans six -month locations, even in a teaching clinic where family medicine residents who have graduated from the Medicine School can receive crucial training and get used to team care that work with other health professionals .

As to questions TMU not demand that applicants have scientific history, Chan said, although he had an immunology title when he went to the Medicine School, there were many other scientific subjects to learn.
“He really doesn’t put anyone at a real disadvantage because everyone will know a little,” said Can.
Graduates from other schools that do not require traditional pre-media sciences, such as the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Humanities and Medicine Program in New York and several Medicine Schools In Canada, They have moved to successful careers as doctors.
Join nurses and physiotherapists
Dr. Preston Smith, inaugural dean of PEI’s new Medicine SchoolA regional campus of the Memorial University in Terranova, also helps to recruit doctors to Pei
Smith has faced concerns about how doctors in the province will assume teaching when the medical care system Already overloaded. In response, he points out how research suggests that doctors who teach tend to remain in their community and have greater professional satisfaction than those who do not.
“One of the great things to try to recruit medical students to want to do family medicine is to see the joy of family practice” that comes from established relationships with patients, said Smith. “You can see that in this building from day 1 of the School of Medicine.”

Allan, of the family Medicine College, has worked on a team with physiotherapists, since many of the patients of the Canadian forces had musculoskeletal problems: “You know, kneel pain, back pain, twisted ankles, torn shoulders.”
Allan said that team -based attention also includes pharmacists who can come once a week to pursue discharge summaries, when patients return home from the hospital are often in different medications, but the documentation does not arrive quickly quickly enough .
Or they could be nurses who help to educate patients about conditions such as high blood pressure and stop for a quick consultation with the doctor when what was supposed to be a routine control is no longer.
Both future medical schools and a new federal report on the gaps in the medical care force say they cannot solve the need for primary care in Canada or do it quickly, but they strive to make a dent.
“In an environment of the team, we are providing, I think that better care and we are providing more comprehensive care and we are allowing more patients to look,” said Allan.