Nova Scotia offers grads tuition help to work in doctor-short areas

The Nova Scotia government is offering up to 25 medical school graduates as much as $120,000 each to pay off their university bills if they’ll agree to practise in a community that needs physicians.

The new program is open to recent graduates who are in their residency or out of province physicians that have been practising for less than seven years.

The governing Liberals promised the program in the 2013 election campaign.

The province has already been marketing the program, recently at a recruitment fair in Quebec City.

Health Minister Leo Glavine says it was so well received there that he's convinced it will draw new doctors to Nova Scotia.

"We know that there will indeed be applications coming forward immediately," he says.

Family doctors willing to practice in a community without a regional hospital, or specialists willing to work outside the Capital District Health Authority, are eligible for an additional $30,000.

Part of the attraction, Glavine says, is the growing cost of getting a medical degree.

"The cost of going to med school has really escalated over the last five to eight years," he says.    

The Health Department will determine which areas of the province are underserved and can best benefit from the program, but the minister says doctors could go to Shelburne, Barrington, the Digby area or Baddeck.

The program will also help when it comes to replacing doctors who plan to get out of the profession.

"Over the next 10 years we will need about 200 doctors because of retirements and phasing down of careers, so this is going to give us a really significant jump start of 100 doctors if there is full uptake," Glavine says.

The province will give priority to applicants from Nova Scotia.