McMaster seeks foreign-trained doctors

University wants practitioners to fill family medicine spots as new grads turn to other specialties

- JOANNA FRKETICH

A record high number of foreigntrained doctors will start residencies in family medicine at McMaster University this year as primary care struggles to attract Canadian physicians.

"We are hearing from medical students that family medicine is a much less desirable career choice," said Dr. Cathy Risdon, chair of the department of family medicine at McMaster in Hamilton. "They are worried about the costs of running and staffing a practice, the challenges of paying off their training debt with a family medicine income, the demands of caring for patients without access to an interprofessional team."

The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) is raising alarm about the increasing number of family medicine training spots going unfilled as newly graduated doctors make other specialties their first choice.

As of March, 108 family medicine training positions out of 560 in Ontario were vacant after the first round of pairing students and schools by the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS). It's a sharp rise from 61 unfilled positions in 2022 and 30 in 2020.

"It is clear we need to act now to ensure there is a future for family medicine in Ontario," OMA President Dr. Andrew Park said at an April 23 briefing to raise awareness about the issue.

"Students... don't want to enter practice in a broken system. We must address these problems and promote family medicine as a rewarding and an impactful career choice."

Up until recently, McMaster's family medicine residency spots would mostly fill up by the end of the first round every March. In 2020, just one of 99 positions was vacant and in 2018 only two of 100 spots remained unfilled. Going back to 2017, the highest number of unmatched training positions was six in 2021.