Dean hired to lead new medical school at Simon Fraser University | 24CA News
The province has introduced tens of millions of {dollars} in funding for a brand new medical faculty at Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Surrey campus and has named its dean.
Premier David Eby mentioned $4.9 million in funding could be offered to assist accreditation, planning, engagement, and staffing. Earlier this yr, the province offered $1.5 million to assist the event of a business case.
Dr. Roger Strasser has been appointed interim dean. He was the founding dean and CEO of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
According to SFU, Strasser is likely one of the “world’s foremost authorities in rural, socially accountable medical education.”
“With this new medical school, the Province of B.C. is demonstrating its commitment to a strong public health-care system that meets the needs of its diverse and growing population,” Strasser mentioned in a news launch.
“I am extremely excited to have this opportunity to join SFU to help deliver on that vision.”
Once opened, the college would be the second full medical faculty within the province, alongside the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine, which has campuses all through the province.
The NDP first introduced the SFU medical faculty throughout the October 2020 election marketing campaign. The top notch was anticipated to start in 2023, however that has now been pushed again to 2026.
The Ministry of Finance projected a $5-billion finances surplus final week, of which Eby’s latest guarantees have amounted to greater than $1 billion.
The Opposition Liberals slammed the federal government for delaying a promise it made in 2020 when a million folks in B.C. shouldn’t have a household physician.
“The NDP promised to create a second medical school back in October 2020 and said we could expect graduates as soon as the 2023 school year,” said Liberal health critic Shirley Bond in a statement. “Today’s announcement that B.C. will not see new docs graduate from SFU till 2030 is devastating news for these anticipating swift motion from their authorities in the course of a health-care disaster.”
Plans to license extra internationally-trained docs
The replace comes a day after the premier unveiled plans to license extra internationally-trained docs to work within the province as a method to cope with an ongoing scarcity of household docs, specialists and emergency room workers.
Eby mentioned the province can be rising the variety of internationally-educated household docs that may develop into licensed to work in B.C., from 32 spots to 96, by March 2024.
Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, the president of Doctors of B.C., described the plan as “meaningful” and substantial.
“This is a component of a much larger action plan to address the challenges with the family doctor shortages and the lack of patient access,” she advised B.C. Today host Michelle Eliot.
An estimated one million British Columbians shouldn’t have a household doctor. A ballot from the Angus Reid Institute launched in September suggests 59 per cent of B.C. residents face challenges accessing a health care provider, greater than the nationwide common of fifty per cent.
Patients in B.C. have reported lengthy wait instances for remedies, together with most cancers testing and surgical procedures equivalent to hip replacements and difficulties accessing very important medicine and units to deal with diabetes.
Dosanjh educated within the U.S., and mentioned the method to develop into licensed in Canada was longer than needed, and any transfer to streamline the method is a step in the fitting path.
Dr. Honieh Barzegari, who works for a Vancouver-based firm creating options for pores and skin most cancers, mentioned that she gave up on the licensing course of when she moved to B.C. from Iran about seven years in the past.
“The pathway for foreign-trained medical doctors to be able to get the licence and practice here is a very cumbersome path.”
At the tip of October, the province introduced it will be launching a brand new cost mannequin for household docs in 2023, responding to complaints from physicians that the present fee-for-service system doesn’t correctly compensate them for his or her work.
