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LETTER: B.C. needs another medical school

Quebec trains roughly twice as many doctors per capita as B.C.
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(Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Looking into the acute shortage of doctors in B.C., I came across a most informative 2023 article in the peer-reviewed journal Family Medicine and Community Health, titled Biopsy of Canada’s Family Physician Shortage (it's open access, short, and pretty much jargon-free).

Quebec trains roughly twice as many doctors per capita as B.C., and Newfoundland and Labrador trains nearly three times more. New Brunswick, pathetically, lacks a med school at all.

It seems that the medical faculty at Memorial University in St John's is strongly committed to rural family practice. While it is commendable that B.C. is finally getting a second med school (after all, the one in Calgary opened in 1966), we need another well outside the Lower Mainland. Prince George comes to mind. 

Louis Guilbault

Victoria





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