Maclean’s magazine (Jan 14, 2008 edition) treads the politically incorrect waters this week with a cover story on a pending crisis in health care - specifically the impact the increasing proportion of female physicians will have on Canadians’ ability to find a doctor. It’s a story I have been peddling for years; long before I retired from the health ministry. The story’s thesis is that female doctors work less and for a shorter period of time than male doctors. They take breaks from their careers for families and when they are working they work fewer hours. As a result it takes a lot more female than male doctors to do the work and, since we haven’t done enough to increase the number of medical school graduates, a severe doctor shortage is inevitable.
There is nothing wrong with the women practising medicine and taking a different approach from men to their careers. They may even make better doctors for it.
What was wrong, and continues to be, is how the affirmative action promoters told us that increasing the proportion of female doctors would be cost-neutral. Knowing that an already stretched health care and educational system would be hard-pressed to fund extra places in medical school to make up for the shift in practice habits, they conveniently ignored and, in the worse cases, denied the inevitable impact.
Now, with an unprecedented proportion of MDs preparing to retirement, Canada faces a crisis. Our universities are not prepared or able to address the shortfall within a satisfactory timeframe, even it unlimited funds were made available. Canadians will suffer unnecessarily because of a shortage that could have been avoided if it had not been so politically incorrect to identify a pending problem before it befell us.
It’s nice to know what I’ve been saying for a decade or more is now admitted by health services planners. It’s too bad it’s likely too late to make a difference. It’s also reassuring that I implemented a personal strategy to deal with the problem years ago when I chose a family doctor much younger than me and still, I hope, years from retirement.
Note: Maclean’s stories do not appear on the website while the issue is still on sale.
There is nothing wrong with the women practising medicine and taking a different approach from men to their careers. They may even make better doctors for it.
What was wrong, and continues to be, is how the affirmative action promoters told us that increasing the proportion of female doctors would be cost-neutral. Knowing that an already stretched health care and educational system would be hard-pressed to fund extra places in medical school to make up for the shift in practice habits, they conveniently ignored and, in the worse cases, denied the inevitable impact.
Now, with an unprecedented proportion of MDs preparing to retirement, Canada faces a crisis. Our universities are not prepared or able to address the shortfall within a satisfactory timeframe, even it unlimited funds were made available. Canadians will suffer unnecessarily because of a shortage that could have been avoided if it had not been so politically incorrect to identify a pending problem before it befell us.
It’s nice to know what I’ve been saying for a decade or more is now admitted by health services planners. It’s too bad it’s likely too late to make a difference. It’s also reassuring that I implemented a personal strategy to deal with the problem years ago when I chose a family doctor much younger than me and still, I hope, years from retirement.
Note: Maclean’s stories do not appear on the website while the issue is still on sale.
