We need to recapture the humanity of the NHS and make doctors feel more than grinding cogs in a brutal machine.
Cadaver-based teaching prepares students intellectually and emotionally to deal with the challenges they will face in their health sciences careers.
Dr Tobias Houlton
A ‘learn local’ strategy, along with increased residency positions and the return of a rotating internship could go a long way towards improving Canada’s system of medical training.
The person in charge of your surgery is a consultant surgeon. A consultant is the most qualified doctor in a hospital.
A few woefully underfunded academic health sciences centres are responsible for providing complex care to patients with life-threatening illnesses as well as training future doctors and testing the latest in new surgical techniques.
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Canada’s systems of health funding, medical training and physician compensation need an overhaul – to support vital centres of medical research and complex care.
Student doctors need good role models to learn good patient communication.
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Doctor communication is an important part of their education. But they can’t have unlimited empathy for their patients either, or they’d never get the job done.
To become a qualified physician in Canada, medical graduates must complete a two- to six-year medical residency. Competition for spots is becoming increasingly intense.
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Thousands of medical graduates across Canada are waiting nervously to find out whether they will secure a coveted residency spot in the area of their choice.
A new model of ‘competency based’ medical education is gaining popularity globally, in which trainees are assessed on skill rather than mere time invested.
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A radical new model of “competency based” medical education emphasizes trainee skill over time invested. Queen’s University is the first in Canada to fully embrace this shift.
We shouldn’t have to wait for a disaster to make sure anaesthetics are properly regulated.
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Australia has more doctors per population than most comparable countries, yet many living in rural and remote areas don’t receive the care they need. Changing the way we train doctors will fix this.
Long term monitoring of mental health in medical trainees is urgently required.
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Medical students are practising invasive techniques on themselves and fellow students, a new study shows. But aside from obvious safety concerns, is there anything wrong with self-practice?
Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon whose only anatomy training was using virtual reality?
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The widespread bullying of doctors during training is not just an issue for surgeons, or women. It’s a problem for all medical professionals – and it poses a risk to patient safety.
If you need doctors to work in the country, you need a selection system that picks people with those values and commitments.
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Three features of a medical school help predict where medical students will eventually work as doctors: selection, the curriculum, and the professionalism of the newly-qualified doctors.
Some doctors will struggle to adapt to a less deferential society in which they are expected to be humble and human team-players.
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Medical culture’s hierarchical and autocratic nature harms not just patients and students but doctors too. The good news is that change is in the air – but it won’t be easy.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne