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Deans on the Hill

Deans on the HillOn Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) held its first Deans on the Hill lobby day on Parliament Hill.

The event was a resounding success and saw AFMC staff and Deans of Medicine from across the country meet and discuss issues of national importance with 31 members of parliament and senators from all four major political parties. Read the full press release.


Participants

  • Pierre Boyle
    Vice Dean, Research, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal
  • Nick Busing
    President & CEO, The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
  • Irving Gold
    Vice President, Government Relations and External Affairs, The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
  • Ross MacGillivray
    Vice Dean, Academic Affairs, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
  • Jay Rosenfield
    Vice Dean, Undergraduate Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
  • James Rourke
    Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland
    Chair, AFMC Board of Directors
  • Steve Slade
    Vice President, Research and Analysis, The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (CAPER/ORIS)
  • Catharine Whiteside
    Dean, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto


Breakfast

Dr. James Rourke and Dr. Nick Busing presented on health human resource planning.
Download the Deans on the Hill breakfast presentation



Meetings

Deans on the Hill participants convened a full day of meetings on the hill with the following MPs and Senators:



Key Messages

Research

(a) Increase to CIHR budget - the 1% solution

AFMC recommends that the Federal Government increase the budget for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in a balanced and strategic way, to bring the total amount to 1% of Canadian health expenditures ($1.27B). This 1% solution will capitalize on our past investments and enable us to reach the objectives set out in Advantage Canada and Canada's Science and Technology Strategy.

Further, we recommend that a significant portion of this increase be allocated to programs aimed at enabling those who conduct world-class research in this country to create and sustain productive and transformative research careers, and to apply their research to the betterment of Canada.

(b) Balanced Investments in health and biomedical research

AFMC believes that national investments in health and biomedical research need to be balanced between:

  • Biomedical/clinical research as well as health services research and broader social science research, as they relate to health
  • Discovery and applied research
  • current and emerging research areas
  • direct and indirect costs, infrastructure, and funding for researchers and their research operations

(c) Tax policy measures that will further accelerate private sector investment in the life sciences sector such as

  • providing incentives for those who take the risk to take new discoveries through each stage of the 10 to 15 year development life cycle such as flow through and/or limited partnership opportunities similar to those that exist in the oil and gas exploration and development sector
  • Implementing a capital gains exemption on all new direct investments made in 2009 and 2010 to those companies with Canadian headquarters investing in science and technology in Canada

(d) Investment in state-of the-art research infrastructure

(e) Further investments in programs designed to support career and clinician scientists to ensure Canada is at the cutting edge of competiveness

Health Human Resources

(a) Visa Trainee Substitution to create more PG spaces for IMGs, including Canadians Studying Abroad

During the 2008 election campaign, all of the major Canadian political parties made campaign promises with respect to increasing the number of doctors in Canada. More specifically, the Conservative Party of Canada pledged to create 50 new postgraduate positions.

In alignment with the campaign promise made by this government, AFMC is recommending that 50 new postgraduate training positions be made available to IMGs, including Canadians studying medicine abroad, for five consecutive years, starting with the 2010-2011 academic year. These 50 positions will replace some or all positions currently occupied by Visa Trainees in sites where residency training capacity is limited.

The cost of this reallocation would be based on the assumption that the annual cost per residency position is $125,000. This figure includes $75,000 paid to faculties of medicine to cover training costs (costs that are currently paid through contracts with foreign sponsors) plus $50,000 for residents' salary and benefits. The reallocation strategy would result in an overall addition of 250 physicians to Canada's physician workforce. These additions would be realized over the period 2010-11 to 2018-19. The total estimated cost of the initiative would be $85,937,500, or $343,750 per physician added to the workforce.

(b) National, Pan-Canadian Health Human Resources Observatory

In order for the contribution of faculties of medicine to HHR planning to be maximized, Canada needs a forward-thinking, comprehensive planning process. AFMC has been urging the government to invest in the creation of a pan-Canadian, inter-professional HHR observatory in that would have the task of collecting the vast amount of data we have, conducting a comprehensive analysis of Canada's present and anticipated future HHR needs and making evidence-based HHR recommendations to federal and provincial governments.

Medical Education

(a) Social Accountability in Medical Education Fund

Since 2002, with support from Health Canada, the Social Accountability Initiative of AFMC has penetrated all of the medical schools in Canada and has involved countless partners in health care.

National initiatives have included projects aimed at educating future physicians in palliative and end-of-life care, the healthcare needs of Francophone Minorities outside Québec, professionalism, improving public health medical education, health needs of Canada's Indigenous Peoples, inter-professional practice, resources for teachers of Internationally Educated Health Professionals, consultation with young leaders from across Canada to inform medical education, and a major analysis of the state of medical education in Canada.

Each of these social accountability projects has been funded by modest, short-term financial contributions from Health Canada for which we are most grateful. Unfortunately, however, due to the short-term nature of the funding, these projects have fallen short of reaching their full transformative potential

AFMC is proposing that the federal government invest $50M over ten years in a fund for Social Accountability in Medical Education in order to situate our social accountability work on solid footing and to allow us to bring our deliverables to bear across the country. These funds would be used to (a) create a stable scanning process to identify new and emerging social accountability needs in Canada, (b) create new programs and initiatives resulting from these scanning processes, (c) provide stable funding for existing social accountability activities in our faculties to be implemented nationally, (d) evaluate the impact of social accountability initiatives across the country, and (e) partner with other organizations in areas where our faculties should be involved but not necessarily lead.



Question Period

All Deans on the Hill participants were guests of MP Jack Harris (St. John's East, NL).



Documents

2009 Brief submitted to the Standing Committee on Finance



About Deans on the Hill

Deans on the Hill is an annual event that brings Canada's Deans of Medicine to Parliament Hill for meetings with MPs and Senators in order to share recommendations on issues affecting academic medicine in Canada and to promote the role that Faculties of Medicine can play to address them.

For more information on Deans on the Hill, please contact Irving Gold at 613-730-0687 Ext. 236 or igold at afmc.ca.



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