How to stop the CFPC’s plan to increase residency to three years

Recently, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) announced plans to increase the Family Practice residency to three years. This is, in my opinion, the stupidest decision they have made in my 31 years of practice. They should fix the current residency program instead. They also announced plans to increase the fees that family doctors pay by 7%, at a time when most family doctors are struggling to stay afloat. This would be the second stupidest decision the CFPC has made in my 31 years of practice. There is, however, some hope. Some members have gotten some private members motions onto the agenda for the CFPC Annual General meeting. If enough ordinary members vote for those motions, it will pressure the CFPC Board into doing the right thing and stopping the implementation of these changes. In typical Ivory Tower fashion, the CFPC has made the voting process exceptionally convoluted. It’s so labyrinthine that it made we wonder if it was done on purpose to discourage members voting. Ivory Tower types don’t usually like listening to the masses. However, a step by step detailed set of instructions on how to vote down these proposals were posted by Dr. Liz Zubek, a family physician in Maple Ridge, B.C., on her Facebook page. Dr. Zubek stresses that this is an accumulation of information gathered by many doctors and she herself has copied and pasted much of it to form the final set of directions. Dr. Zubek forwarded to me the detailed instructions that the CFPC doesn’t want you to see on my blog. Here’s how to vote ONLINE and IN ADVANCE of the Annual General Meeting. You do not have to attend in person and can do it from your comfy (?) office chair. From Dr. Zubek’s Facebook page: There is an ability to vote down the third year of residency with private member motions buried in the agenda for the upcoming CFPC AGM, plus the ability to vote for transparency asking the CFPC to post something as simple as board and committee minutes, so we can actually see how they come to their decisions that make no sense to us . . . and we can also vote on their wish to increase our yearly fees. But it isn’t easy to vote! These are instructions for how to vote by proxy in advance in the CFPC annual member meeting taken from another post: How To Vote, CFPC 2023 1. Find the two emails from Oct. 11 called “1 of 2” and “2 of 2” (search “Participate CFPC” if you’ve already deleted them). Click where it says “Register here”: 2. That will take you to a new page. The “control number” to enter here is in the “2 of 2” email from Oct. 11. You may have to type it in because copy and paste hasn’t worked for a number of people. 3. Once you hit “Login,” it will take you to a new screen. Here, select “Yes, I wish to appoint a proxy.” This means you are registering your vote ahead of the meeting and don’t have to attend the meeting. (If you do end up attending, you are allowed to change your vote): 4. After you press “continue,” it will thank you and then send you two more emails that will take 20-30 minutes to arrive. NEW INFORMATION: Despite doing this 12 hours ago (as of this writing), I have yet to get a second email. Some physicians have told me it is now taking up to 24 hours to get an email. Many are complaining that they are having difficulty logging in in the first place. 5. Open the new “1 of 2” email and click on the weird looking “lumimeet” link and use the password that’s in the new “2 of 2” email to log in. Again, you may have to type it in because copy and paste hasn’t worked for a number of people. 6. You’re almost there! On this page, you can now click to read all the motions if you like. When you’re ready, you click the “Voting” tab at the top and you can . . . vote! 7. In the interest of democracy, I will not tell you how to vote. However I will tell you that I voted “no” to the fee of increase and “yes” to the next four motions for greater transparency, information as to how the third year decision was made, a financial impact report of the third year, and to put a hold on third year implementation. Hope this is useful! Now go and vote!! It’s so important.” You MUST vote by MONDAY OCTOBER 30, 2023 at 5:00 pm! My two cents: This grumpy old country doctor intends to vote exactly like Dr. Zubek did. No to the fee increase. Yes to the next four motions. It’s unclear at this time whether these motions are binding on the CFPC Board. But at the very least, us ordinary members have to say our piece. Vote to stop the three-year residency and fee increases first. Then let’s find out how the situation became so unseemly so quickly. Dr. Sohail Gandhi is a former president of the OMA and opinions are his and not necessarily the opinions of the OMA Board or of anyone at the Canadian Healthcare Network. This article is a reprint from his blog: justanoldcountrydoctor.com.

How to stop the CFPC’s plan to increase residency to three years

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