Caribbean ‘safety net’ for BU grads

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This article was published 30/03/2016 (3451 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon University president Gervan Fearon inked a memorandum of understanding Tuesday that makes it easier for pre-professional science students at BU to become a doctor or veterinarian via a stint on the southern tip of an idyllic Caribbean island.

Provided they are up to snuff academically, BU science grads are now guaranteed entry to medical and veterinary schools at St. George’s University in Grenada, in the southeastern Caribbean Sea.

“You make an expression that this is your path right at the beginning. That doesn’t preclude that individual from having that guarantee and still applying to the University of Manitoba,” Fearon said.

The agreement will act as a “safety net” for aspiring physicians at BU who miss the cut for one of the U of M’s 110 spots, he said.

But the safety net doesn’t come cheap. A year’s tuition at St. George’s costs US$52,000, according to the university’s assistant director of admissions for Canada, Dr. Benjamin Robinson, who was in the Wheat City to sign the MOU.

In 2014, The New York Times tabulated the school’s tuition and fees for four years to be US$246,400. There are academic and needs-based scholarships available at SGU, Robinson added.

Annual fees and costs for medical school at the University of Manitoba are approximately $12,700.

“If (the students) decide later on to go to Manitoba, we’re going to be the first to congratulate them,” Robinson said, himself a SGU medical school graduate. “But at the end of the day, it’s so competitive to get into a Canadian medical program. This gives them a chance to do what their dreams are.

“We’ve got some of the best beaches in the world … It’s a very safe place, it’s a $350-million purpose-built campus.”

Austin Gulliver, BU’s acting dean of science, said that on average, five or six graduates of BU’s science program are accepted to the U of M medical school. Tuesday’s agreement could send as many as six more students to the West Indies each year.

Currently, Gulliver said a small number of BU pre-med school students go abroad, mainly to schools in Australia, the Caribbean and the U.S.

“The difficulty for them is returning back to (Canada) … that is somewhat problematic for residencies. This will assist getting around that barrier,” he said.

Residency placements are structured preferentially for students from Canadian medical schools. Students who studied elsewhere are eligible for about 10 per cent of Canadian residencies, Gulliver said.

SGU grads are often competitive for those placements, however.

“Our student success rate is amazing — we put more people in residencies in the last six years combined than any medical school in the world,” Robinson said.

There is a demand for new graduates. The province’s Labour Market Forecast predicts that there will be 1,300 job openings for physicians, dentists and veterinarians in Manitoba by 2021.

“I believe they’re paying a lot more attention in Canada both to recruiting students and getting them back into the country,” Gulliver said.

Fearon said ensuring the future doctors will return to Manitoba after studying in the West Indies is “absolutely a concern.”

“Any time we think of domestic students going abroad to study, what’s the implications of certification when they come back?” he said.

“The other side of it is, there are a lot of international students who do come to Brandon who are actually hoping to practise medicine in their own country, so in that regard it does provide a direction venue for those students.”

The MOU is part of a new focus by BU recruiters on the Caribbean and Latin America.

Fearon said the economic impact of international students on the Canadian economy is equivalent to the national timber industry.

Of BU’s approximately 3,200 students, five per cent are currently from outside Canada. Fearon said the university is hoping to increase the number of international students to 10 per cent in the next three to five years.

“We’d like to see our entire enrolment to grow from 3,200 up to about 4,000 or just above those kinds of numbers (in three to five years),” he said.

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