The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, announced on Monday reductions in the system for allocating positions in family medicine. Measures aimed at facilitating the establishment of new general practitioners in the regions, while this specialty arouses little enthusiasm among students.
At a press conference at the University of Quebec in Rimouski, the Minister unveiled flexibility in the regional medical staffing plans (PREM) to help the regions attract more family doctors.
These PREMs impose a form of quota on the regions in order to distribute new physicians fairly, according to need. However, if the objective remains “good” in the eyes of the minister, he concedes that the process has gotten bogged down over time.
The minister acknowledged that it was “important to change the way we work” to make family medicine more attractive. To do this, Christian Dubé says he listened extensively to medical student associations as well as the Federation of General Practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ).
It first proposes granting more autonomy to the regional departments of general medicine in order to distribute their available posts according to their local priorities. In a press release, the Minister insists on his desire to “bring decision-making back to the field, to the regions”.
Know your tasks in advance
In the process, the Ministry of Health and Social Services also expressed its desire to assign the specific medical activities (AMP), to which a family doctor must commit, as soon as his hiring in a region is confirmed. given.
In parallel with their practice in the clinic, family physicians must perform on-call shifts in emergency rooms or in CHSLDs, in particular. These AMPs are often assigned after the doctor arrives in a region. From now on, we would like these tasks to be the subject of a prior agreement.
This new approach should allow new doctors to choose the region where they want to establish themselves according to their interests, according to the AMPs proposed.
In addition, a new online tool is about to be launched to consolidate family medicine job offers in all regions. New physicians will thus be able to better assess the positions offered according to the tasks that are required. This tool should eventually also be available for medical specialists.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, the president of the Federation of Resident Physicians of Quebec (FMRQ), Dr. Jessica Ruel-Laliberté, welcomed the minister’s desire to simplify the process, which has become very cumbersome for a candidate aspiring to a career in medicine. family.
“The official position of our members is that they want a process that is simpler. [Actuellement], it’s a process that takes several steps, which is arduous and difficult to understand,” she explains. Dr. Ruel-Laliberté remains cautious all the same and says she hopes that the changes will be applied this fall.
The FMRQ would also like candidates to be able to submit applications in more than one region from the first round when the available positions are announced. No announcement has yet been made in this regard.
far from enough
From the point of view of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ), these reductions are far from sufficient to make family medicine attractive. Its president, Dr. Marc-André Amyot, recalls having sent around twenty possible solutions to the minister.
Moreover, the lack of interest shown by residents was once again manifested in the results of the second round recently revealed by the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CARMS).
In the end, 67 training places in family medicine in Quebec remained vacant. Following the first round, there were 99 vacancies. The second round will have made it possible to fill less than thirty.
“It is still catastrophic! “, protests Dr. Amyot. “How much in specialties?” Zero ! he continues, pointing out that this number is higher than all the other Canadian provinces combined. According to CARMS data, 27 places remain unfilled in other Canadian universities, plus six places at the Université de Sherbrooke dedicated to the Moncton region, in New Brunswick.
According to Dr. Amyot, the key remains promoting the profession and encouraging candidates from remote regions. The FMOQ pleads for the granting of places in faculties of medicine to candidates from various regions, then to offer them internships in their region and finally to offer them scholarships accompanied by a commitment to return to practice in their hometown. .
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