McFadyen says he ‘won’t rule anything out’ on med school

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This article was published 21/09/2011 (5513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Progressive Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen has clarified statements he made earlier this week on the idea of Brandon-based medical school.

At a leaders debate in Winnipeg on Monday, the Tory leader was asked point-blank if Brandon should have a separate medical school or whether he felt it was a waste of resources.

McFadyen responded by saying it was an “interesting idea when it came forward,” but the party has been getting “advice” that the idea is “not practical.”

He went on to say that the location of the medical school is one “we’re going to have to look at carefully.”

McFadyen did not return calls from the Sun Monday afternoon, but told the Sun Tuesday that his comment was taken “out of context.”

He said the impractical idea he was referring to is that of a rural medical school being an immediate solution for the physician retention problem that currently plagues Manitoba.

“The advice that we’re getting is from members of the medical profession, from inside and outside of Winnipeg, who are saying that the real issue is retention and that’s where we need to focus as we go forward,” he said.

“That part of retention involves recruitment to medical school and training and there are lots of ways of improving medical care that involve such things as residencies and other aspects of medical and nursing training outside of the city of Winnipeg.”

McFadyen said based on that “advice,” the party is looking at certain aspects of medical training that “can and should” be done outside the provincial capital to help increase Manitoba’s complement of homegrown medical admissions and graduates.

Expansion of education and training outside Winnipeg should be done “over the longer term” to help resolve this issue, he stressed, noting that the short-term should be spent increasing the number of doctors and nurses practising in rural Manitoba.

The NDP has committed $350,000 to a feasibility study on the idea of a medical school for rural Manitoba.

The study is being co-chaired by BU president Deborah Poff and the University of Manitoba’s dean of medicine Brian Postl and should be complete next year.

Until the results of that study are in, McFadyen said they “won’t rule anything out,” but remain “generally supportive” of such an idea.

However, the Tory leader’s lukewarm comments to a Brandon medical school are “saddening” to local physician Derry Decter, who was behind the initial push to get such a program set up in Brandon.

Decter says he’s bewildered as to why McFadyen was the proposal’s No.1 fan just 18 short months ago and now appears to be cool to the idea.

“He was the first guy out of the gate, talking about this and now he seems to have completely forgotten what he’s promised and discussed in the past,” he said.

McFadyen has been misinformed that a medical school in Brandon will not address short-term needs, Decter said, noting that doctors can be in rural areas within two years of a program’s launch.

“The proposal involved starting a residency program at the end of the second year,” he said.

“So 24 months after you open a medical school, you would have residents — graduates from elsewhere — who would be working as resident doctors. These would be people who have graduated, have their MD, and they would be in training with doctors in the field.”

While he did not categorically say a medical school is in the cards for Brandon, NDP Leader Greg Selinger went on record at Monday’s debate as promising that “there will be a program in Brandon, and Brandon will play a role in training doctors.”

In his comments at the debate, Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard said distance education can be a tool for prospective doctors in remote areas looking for medical training.

» adowd@brandonsun.com