Fewer Quebec doctors going into family practice: report

Quebec's doctors are aging fast and the pool from which Quebecers can choose their family physician has grown too slowly to keep up with the demand for medical services.

These are the principal findings of a study released Wednesday by the province's College of Physicians. They echo concerns in several other provinces across Canada published as part of the National Physician Survey on Tuesday.

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"The years of difficulty for doctors and the populace are, unfortunately, not behind us," said Yves Lamontagne, president of the College.

The shortage of family physicians showed no sign of abating, and a recent rise in the number of people studying medicine is unlikely to translate into greater number of doctors before 10 to 15 years' time, according to the College.

"Patients and doctors should be patient and tolerant," Lamontagne counselled.

In the meantime, the College was calling for measures to soften the public impact of the shortage. These included, among others, a wider sharing of resources through the expansion of group practices, university health networks and integrated electronic access to patient records.

The College also argued it should be easier for foreign-trained doctors to practise medicine in Quebec, and that pay for family practitioners should be increased in order to attract greater numbers of newcomers.

15,738 active doctors in province

GRIS, the University of Montreal's Group for Interdisciplinary Research in Health, conducted the study on behalf of the College.

The group's analysis of statistical data compiled between 1994 and 2003 suggested the number of doctors practising in Quebec had increased by a "meagre" one per cent annually, the College said.

In 1994 there were 14,551 active doctors in the province, while in 2003 this number had grown to only 15,738, the statistics showed.

The average age of doctors in Quebec had risen sharply according to the study. In 2003, 50 per cent of them were between 45 and 65 years of age, compared with only 30 per cent in 1994.

Fewer doctors under 35 years

There were also 600 fewer doctors under the age of 35 in 2003 compared with 1994, the study found. And among specialists, more than a third were more than 55 years of age, and more than 1,000 of them were older than 65 years, a development the College said "worried [it] greatly."

But women were entering the field of medicine in proportionately ever greater numbers, accounting for 36 per cent of the total in 2003, against 27 per cent in 1994.

And 71 per cent of all doctors under 35 years of age were also women, the study showed.

Fewer going into family medicine

Spurred by the promise of better pay, young doctors were increasingly opting to practise emergency medicine, a fact that explained Quebecers' growing difficulties in finding a family physician.

The statistics behind the trend suggested that only about half of all doctors under 35 years chose to go into family practice in 2003. This compared with their 1994 counterparts, whose numbers going into family practice rose to 73 per cent in 1994, from 64 per cent a year earlier.

Doctors under 35 years spent an average of 9.8 hours per week in family practice, while their colleagues between 45 and 64 years worked in family practice an average of 25 hours weekly.