CMAJ Says Canada Should Switch To 3-Year Medical School

Is this extra year necessary? Training each medical student in Canada is costly both in time and money. Each student requires hundreds of hours of time from established family physicians, specialists and medical educators — time that otherwise could be spent caring for patients. In terms of raw financial cost, a conservative estimate of cost to Canadian taxpayers for the extra year of education is about $170 000 per student. The extra year also represents a substantial financial burden for students, with annual tuitions ranging from $2181 at Université Laval to $16 862 at the University of Toronto. Based on circumstantial rather than comparative evidence, physicians trained in 3-year programs do not appear to be any less competent than graduates of 4-year programs. Licensing authorities have not signalled any concerns about inferior test scores, at least not publicly. Family medicine and specialty training programs have not identified deficiencies in graduates of 3-year programs. Nor has the Canadian Medical Protective Association indicated that such physicians are at increased risk of being the subject of complaint. http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/178/1/11

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