What do you think about private med school in BC?

[JOURNALIST]

Hey guys,

 

I'm a broadcast journalism student at BCIT and I need one or 2 of you med hopefuls to comment for a story I'm working on. It's a radio story and it will be aired on evolution radio 107.9 FM (CFML), the BCIT student-run radio station. The story will be aired tomorrow, so you have to be availble for about 10 minutes anytime tomorrow between 6:45am and 3:30pm. They story would air tomorrow too.

 

The story is about private medical school. Can you tell me if you would still apply for med school if they would start a whole new private school here in BC. Does the money matter to you? What would you be concerned about if it were private? Are you in support of having a private school in addition to the public options we currently have?

 

PM me if you're interested and I'll give you the phone number to call me tomorrow at school.

 

You can listen to our radio station either by radio 107.9FM or on the internet http://www.evolution1079.com

 

Thanks and take care!

 

BCIT Journalist..

[verbally_abused]

Hey guys,

 

I'm a broadcast journalism student at BCIT and I need one or 2 of you med hopefuls to comment for a story I'm working on. It's a radio story and it will be aired on evolution radio 107.9 FM (CFML), the BCIT student-run radio station. The story will be aired tomorrow, so you have to be availble for about 10 minutes anytime tomorrow between 6:45am and 3:30pm. They story would air tomorrow too.

 

The story is about private medical school. Can you tell me if you would still apply for med school if they would start a whole new private school here in BC. Does the money matter to you? What would you be concerned about if it were private? Are you in support of having a private school in addition to the public options we currently have?

 

PM me if you're interested and I'll give you the phone number to call me tomorrow at school.

 

You can listen to our radio station either by radio 107.9FM or on the internet http://www.evolution1079.com

 

Thanks and take care!

 

BCIT Journalist..

 

 

interesting. I think people would apply

[sdfsdf]

Hey guys,

 

I'm a broadcast journalism student at BCIT and I need one or 2 of you med hopefuls to comment for a story I'm working on. It's a radio story and it will be aired on evolution radio 107.9 FM (CFML), the BCIT student-run radio station. The story will be aired tomorrow, so you have to be availble for about 10 minutes anytime tomorrow between 6:45am and 3:30pm. They story would air tomorrow too.

 

The story is about private medical school. Can you tell me if you would still apply for med school if they would start a whole new private school here in BC. Does the money matter to you? What would you be concerned about if it were private? Are you in support of having a private school in addition to the public options we currently have?

 

PM me if you're interested and I'll give you the phone number to call me tomorrow at school.

 

You can listen to our radio station either by radio 107.9FM or on the internet http://www.evolution1079.com

 

Thanks and take care!

 

BCIT Journalist..

 

 

wjat time woudl it air?

[JOURNALIST]

Thanks guys for the responses..the piece would air shortly after I interview you on the phone, so it will air tomorrow depending on when you call me...after the interview I will write the story and add the clip in and then it will air...I can e-mail you an mp3 of the story too... you don't have to give me your phone number, pm me and I'll give you the school phone #...

[Wolvenstar]

We already have private schools - it's called applying to the US. What justification would there be for a Canadian student to attend a private medical school in BC (assuming you're paying US style tuition) when there are so many excellent schools south of the border?

 

Moreover, given the move to increasingly recognize Canadian citizens who complete medical school in the US as identical to Canadian graduates (the USMLEs STEPs are considered equivalent, all north american medical schools are accredited by the LCME etc etc), what's the point?

 

An interesting area you're probing but I feel you might want to do some more preliminary research on the topic.

 

 

 

It's called bringing more money to the Canadian government. If we open private med school(s) in Canada, that would be more money spent in Canada, which benefits OUR economy over the americans. Besides it would be most likely be cheaper to stay in Canada, than to convert money to american (unless the dollar stays this way at about equal).

 

Then there is the loving your country arguement.

[AMmd]

yeah it all seems great, but where would you find physicians to teach at the private schools. And also, med schools are affiliated with public hospitals, therefore, you would necessarly need to have private hospitals as well.... so concretely, let the americans have their private health care and private schools, and let us have our "socialized" system....

[Asclepius]

yeah it all seems great, but where would you find physicians to teach at the private schools. And also, med schools are affiliated with public hospitals, therefore, you would necessarly need to have private hospitals as well.... so concretely, let the americans have their private health care and private schools, and let us have our "socialized" system....

 

Our “socialized” system is not sustainable and needs reform, maybe even to a system that allows private hospitals and clinics alongside ones that are publicly funded . Its easy view our system as superior because of the “values” that it is based on but you really need to take an objective view to see the problems our system creates. US healthcare is definitely not the answer but our system is also broken …. anyways I didn’t mean to derail this thread and open up another can of worms. [/2cents]

[AMmd]

Our “socialized” system is not sustainable and needs reform, maybe even to a system that allows private hospitals and clinics alongside ones that are publicly funded . Its easy view our system as superior because of the “values” that it is based on but you really need to take an objective view to see the problems our system creates. US healthcare is definitely not the answer but our system is also broken …. anyways I didn’t mean to derail this thread and open up another can of worms. [/2cents]

not to derail the thread, however, I want to give my opinion on this matter...

I have to disagree, our health care has issues, but they will not be solved by a two-tier system. Money managment has to be improved, as well as increasing the number of physicians and other medical professionals.

 

anyways, I read a very nice opinion piece in the National Post recently, it goes like this:

As a specialist trained and formerly employed in England, I can tell you that the UK two tier system [...] has led to precious medical expertise being siphoned off into a small but lucrative private sector. Private sector medicine in the UK only has the ability to service the wealthy and the insured sick, the latter group receiving low risk, routine surgeries. It can't help people with chronic disease or the poor - who most doctors tell you form the bulk of their patients. Private care, incidentlly is almost completly ineffective at helping the critically ill, who are all farmed out (at a cost to the private sector) to public hospitals. The effect here would be the same: Allowing two tiers might attract a few doctors back from the US, but its main effect would be to amplify the problem for those most in need of help, by displacing care to those least in need of it. [...] - Dr. Graham Berlyne, Toronto

[AMmd]

We are really not that far off from the situation mentioned in the excerpt. Canada’s single-payer system suffers from inadequate equipment/technology and wait times are out of hand, not to mention the loss of talented doctors to the US. The result is that people are going to the states for the best and fastest treatment. When wait times are too long for certain individuals in Canada, their provincial government will actually pay for them to travel to the US at a greater cost to our system. Of course, people who can afford it will themselves pay for a trip to the states to forego a lengthy wait time here in Canada if they choose to. In this regard, the inequality is already present. What’s lacking is the revenue that private care generates and the innovation and reduced wait times that follow. Look at it this way, while US citizens suffer from the out of pocket cost, Canadians suffer from painful (emotional and/or physical) wait times. If you’ve ever taken an economics course you will know that the cost of something is not based solely on monetary value. Your view of this will probably depend on whether you are a healthy individual or whether are waiting for essential care that is not quite as “accessible” as the health act intended.

 

Anyways, I’m not claiming to know the answer and I’m not saying you or the doc in your excerpt are wrong either. There are definitely pitfalls to both situations but what’s clear is a need for significant change and I think keeping an open mind about alternatives to a single-payer system is important.

 

But that's exactly what the author was saying, the privite healthcare system will only take care of the individual who are not chronically or critically ill. Thus, the public healthcare will be "stuck" with the expensive to treat diseases while losing precious brainpower to the private secotor... and how is that better than what we have now?? wait times will just be "displaced" as he mentioned, so that you may get your hip surgery right away, but your heart transplant is going to have to wait...

 

anyways, my advice would be to rethink the way we spend the money and invest in more medical personel. Also, a very large chunk of money is wasted for overtime, while we still continue to have a shortage of doctors, nurses, etc. So the solution to go to a private sector would be quite useless as it would just drain the manpower even further... a much simpler solution, imo, would be to increase the number of doctors, nurses, etc. which wouldnt be that much more more expensive to the system, because overtime would be decreased, the need to go to the private sector to get nurses would be eliminated and the salaries of other medical professionals would be stabilized due to a healthier competition in the workforce.

[DiscoDoc]

Dudes, people are spending up to a quarter mill US to go to places like SGU (myself may be one of them ) just for the chance to be a doctor. If a school like that is allowed to open here with Canadian rotations and residencies for their students, people will line up to pay for it. They could probably charge $75k a year and still have a waiting list.

[JOURNALIST]

Great opinions guys. Anyone up for giving me a call and have your opinion be heard on air? PM me before noon today (vancouver time).

[honkycat]

Hmm I found this too late for the show, but I think it's an interesting question. I'll first note that a private school does not in any way have to have a private hospital. Many private US schools (BU and USC come to mind) are affiliated with completely public hospitals, which is especially notable given that such hospitals aren't very common in the US.

 

I think a private school in BC would be beneficial for several reasons:

1) They don't have to focus on accepting mostly in-province students. This would allow them to recruit excellent students from across the country and world who can bring more diversity (including research innovation and overall quality) to the school, and thus our medical system.

 

2) Competition.. I don't mean this in a business sense, but again related to diversity. UBC, being the only medical school in the province, can have major idiosyncracies that wouldn't necessarily be possible if there was another school that BC kids could consider. Things like interview process, curriculum, residency programs, facilities, hospital organization, etc, would necessarily improve because now there is another option even for people who want to stay in BC. I think it would help keep UBC's ego in check.

 

3) More money in our system! This has been said before, and it's simple: because a private school can charge students 3-4 times what the public schools charge, it would funnel good money into the affiliated hospital. The argument that students wouldn't pay $40-50000 for a school when UBC is $15000 is debunked once you take a look at the US system. Many kids go to private schools, perhaps because they couldnt get into their state's public school, but frequently it's because people want a change of scenery, or the private school is better, etc... when it comes to medical education, people are willing to pay.

 

4) More doctors! Kids will come in from all over the world, and while many will obviously leave after getting their training, many will stay - especially being BC, the place where visitors always come and never want to leave. And these that stay will have been educated without all the government subsidization of a UBC student, so it's a win-win for the healthcare system.

 

It will be tough, because in the US many private schools are very old and well-connected, and therefore carry much prestige that makes the price tag seem reasonable. This may deter people from wanting to pay more for what they perceive as a lower-tier education. However, look at California: UCLA and UCSF, the public schools, are considered better than the vast majority of their private schools (USC, Loma Linda). Yet, many would still die, and pay out tons, to get into those and other private schools.

[leviathan]

It's a nice idea, but the Cdn. government would never approve it. The Cdn. government does not WANT more doctors, because that then leads to more billings and more of a burden on their annual budget.