Bureaucracy hampers FP training

I love teaching and learning. I have small boards on the walls of my office and examination rooms and I put up material I use to explain and clarify things for my patient. I started teaching first- and second-year medical students initially but now I find myself more with the third- and fourth-year students Most of the first- and second-year students that I supervised at the beginning wanted to continue with me in their third or fourth year which made me feel happy. I think that their return means I left an imprint in their education process and maybe personal lives. For the last two years, my focus was only on the third- and fourth-year students. I usually treat them as I treat my colleagues: with the utmost respect and care, and they see and feel that. Read: Dr. Jabir Jassam: Unifying the EMR is not easy—it may do more harm than good This year, I supervised six fourth-year students, and they all matched and got their first choice. Here are three samples out of the six emails I received from my students to inform me about their matching outcomes but unfortunately none of them was matched for family medicine. Teaching is not easy. It takes time and effort but it is worth it especially when you see your students pursuing their dreams and developing throughout their medical school. I continued my teaching during the pandemic which was not easy by any means. But I thought that students have to see and learn how we continue to deal with challenging obstacles and hurdles and work under tremendous pressure. I thought I would like to go slightly higher in my teaching journey so I emailed the family medicine department. informed them that I would like to teach family medicine residents and help them to see the practical side of family medicine. My request was unfortunately denied, indirectly due to “lacking spots in the city.” I believe tailoring family medicine training to what family physicians need is one way of strengthening family medicine and restoring its value. That was my goal—which seems to have evaporated after the denial. Sending family medicine residents to hospitals to see adrenoleukodystrophy or mitochondrial diseases rather than sending them to the community where they’d learn about the very common pediatric cases we see is wasting time and resources. Similarly, sending residents to see inpatient injectable treatment of schizophrenia or bipolar instead of sending them to community centres to see how these patients present to their primary doctors is not practical. Moreover, what is the point of sending family medicine residents to work in obstetrics unless they want to do obstetrics during their independent practice instead of sending them to communities to learn gynecology? Tailoring family medicine residency to family physicians’ requirements and needs is imperative and to do that community clinics shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to be part of family physician training. Family physicians in the community are more than capable of training family residents and making them qualified and skillful family physicians because they know what communities need and demand. Dr. Jabir Jassam is a family physician in Ottawa

Bureaucracy hampers FP training

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