As directors of the family medicine department and of the family medicine residency program, we fully agree with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS): all Quebecers should have a family doctor. for long-term follow-up. However, an approach such as the one proposed in Bill 11, which would require family physicians to see more patients than they are able to safely do, will not achieve the. goal. The approach is also likely to have major negative consequences, both for the well-being of patients and for that of physicians, in addition to dissuading students from choosing family medicine as a specialty.
Family physicians have gone through the most difficult public health crisis in 100 years and the most trying in their careers. In large numbers, despite the risks to their own health, they lent a hand to emergency departments, hospital care units, long-term care establishments, home care services, vaccination clinics and COVID-19 units. They have also succeeded in ensuring continuity of care for their own patients by adapting to telemedicine. Family physicians, like their nursing colleagues, are already working beyond their capacity: Sadly, reported burnout cases among family physicians have tripled since the start of the pandemic.
State policymakers might be tempted to apply management principles to the current situation and look for simple solutions, such as the total number of patients treated by each family physician, the hours of accessibility, and the number of patients taken care of from the waiting list. However, varied and innovative solutions are required to improve access to family physicians.
Family physicians are able to manage large numbers of patients if they can count on a system of care that supports them.
For example, many family physicians would have the opportunity to increase the number of patients they see for consultation if the public system better funded access to social workers, psychologists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
Family physicians belonging to family medicine groups (FMGs) in Quebec wish to ensure continuity of care, an approach that has been proven to considerably reduce overdiagnosis, polypharmacy and hospitalizations, in addition to improving patient satisfaction. . That said, FMGs do not have the resources they need, which our medical students can see every day. By ensuring that FMGs can access the necessary resources and provide healthy workplaces, it will be possible not only to improve access to family physicians and patient satisfaction, but also to attract more students. in medicine towards the specialty of family medicine.
We believe that the adoption of punitive policies directed against family physicians is worrying, because it could encourage medical students to abandon this specialty.
We are counting on these students to train the family physicians of tomorrow, but Bill 11 and the pressure it proposes to put on family physicians could encourage them to choose other specialties or to leave our province for work elsewhere. A further decrease in the number of family physicians would create a vicious cycle of constraints and departures that will impact future generations of patients.
We welcome the MSSS’s decision to increase the number of medical students in universities as well as their commitment to train 55% of them in family medicine. However, each year, positions remain vacant in family medicine residency programs in Quebec. We therefore invite the MSSS to adopt a position that firmly supports family physicians, recognizes their value and encourages them, in order to arouse interest in this specialty and thus improve access to family physicians for all Quebecers. the Quebecois.
What do you think? Express your opinion