Fewer medical students going into family medicine contributing to doctor shortage
If you've been searching for a family doctor, you know how hard it is to find one – many people in Ontario don't have access to one.
As some family doctors are retiring and others are moving away from family medicine, there are fewer medical students to take their place.
- Sign up now for daily CTV News Ottawa newsletters
- The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App
The Ontario Medical Association is concerned about the declining number of medical students choosing family medicine and says solutions are needed before the doctor shortage gets worse.
After being with the same family doctor for more than 30 years, Gail Ouellette's physician retired late last year and she has been searching for a new one since.
"I'm trying to be proactive with my health care and I just get the door slammed in my face," she said. "I've been told, sorry, there's nothing available."
Ouellette has placed herself on a wait-list, while continuing to call different clinics.
"And they go probably a couple of more years. So if I get sick, I have to either go to the ER or I have to go to a clinic and try and see a doctor there."
According to the Ontario Medical Association, 2.3 million people across the province do not have regular access to primary care and that number is expected to nearly double in just two years,
"Lack of access to a family doctor can negatively impact health outcomes," says OMA President Dr. Andrew Park.
He says that while Ontario needs family doctors, medical students are avoiding family medicine.
"What does this all mean for patients? It means that there will be fewer family doctors practicing family medicine, which means less access to care."
Costs for running doctors' offices are way up, but their payments are not.
"In the past 10 years, inflation has grown by 25.4 per cent, while average billings have grown by only 6.1 per cent," says Park.
That's on top of a growing administrative burden.
"If you imagine any job that you do, if you to do a simple task and that task to 15 steps instead of two, that's what it's like practicing family medicine these days," explains Park.
Doctors want the issues addressed.
"We want to urge the urgency. This is urgent. We need to do something now so that students will pick family medicine as the career of choice," says Dr. Azadeh Moaveni, director of undergraduate medical education in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto.
So that patients – like Ouellette — can have a family doctor.
"Yeah, something's broken," says Ouellette.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'I just can't believe that it took so long': Body found in wreckage 3 months after deadly fire
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
No proof man lied to brother about number of kittens born in litter, B.C. tribunal rules
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Snakes almost on a plane: U.S. TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger's pants
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
The pros and cons of discussing mental health issues in the workplace
A group of lawyers has written what they call a groundbreaking book about how mental health is perceived in the legal profession.
Explosion at train station leads to discovery of stolen car on Montreal's South Shore: police
Police are investigating after a BMW exploded in the St-Lambert Exo train station parking lot on Montreal's South Shore.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
A candidate for Germany's key party was beaten up while campaigning for European elections
A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left party in next month's election for the European Parliament was beaten up and seriously injured while campaigning in an eastern city, the party said Saturday.
Two killed after collision with truck on Hwy. 417 near Limoges, Ont.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.