CMAJ Readers' Forum

Residency-exchange programs

Online posting: March 11, 1997
Published in print: April 15, 1997 CMAJ 1997;156:1119
The resident-selection season is upon us again, and the process cannot help but provoke some thoughts on some of its apparent flaws. Canadian medical graduates are increasingly apprehensive about obstacles to returning to their home province if they choose to train elsewhere. As a result, they are often making choices that may have more to do with family and geography than with education.

One approach that may partly answer new graduates' worries would be to modify the current resident-training system to allow and encourage trainees to spend at least 1 or 2 years of training in another Canadian program. If this idea was widely accepted, an exchange between programs could develop so that there would be no alteration in the total number of residents in any program. For example, residents in anesthesia at the University of British Columbia could do their third year at the University of Toronto, with a Toronto resident in anesthesia moving to Vancouver.

If the present resident-selection process and educational system are allowed to continue without change, there will likely be a great diminution in exposure to different ways of thinking and working as well as in opportunities to engage in special learning experiences. The increasing geographic narrowness of medical education in Canada should be examined not only for its impact on residents but also for its implications for the medical profession and the quality of health care in this country.

William L. Maurice, MD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC
maurice@unixg.ubc.ca


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