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Fall 2008 |
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Online Only
H
E A L T H A D M I N I S T R A T I O N
Short-term
solution
Retention rate
poor for non-MUN grads
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Stock Photo |
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Granting provisional
licenses to new primary care physicians does not lead to long-term
retention of international medical graduates in Newfoundland &
Labrador, according to a new study led by Dr. Maria Mathews, associate
professor of health policy/health care delivery, MUN Faculty of
Medicine.
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Submitted Article |
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Granting provisional licenses to new
primary care physicians does not lead to long-term retention of
international medical graduates (IMG) in Newfoundland and Labrador,
according to a new study led by Dr. Maria Mathews, associate
professor of health policy/health care delivery in the Faculty of
Medicine.
The study shows that within one year of
receiving a full medical license, most IMGs leave the province.
Retention rates were similar for graduates from Canadian medical schools
other than Memorial. The retention rate for both IMG and Canadian
medical graduates was a little over five per cent, and the median
retention time was 22 months.
In contrast, data shows that 80 per cent
of Memorial medical graduates who become licensed to practice medicine
in Newfoundland and Labrador remain after five years.
The study was published in the July 22
issue of Open
Medicine, a peer-reviewed, independent, open-access general
medical journal.
Dr. Mathews and her colleagues assessed
the relationship between type of initial practice license and retention
time by comparing retention of international medical graduates, Canadian
medical graduates and fully-licensed medical graduates of Memorial
University. They found that out of the 77 IMG who began practicing as
primary care physicians in the province between 1997 and 2000, 5.2 per
cent were still in the province in 2004. The retention rate for Canadian
medical graduates was 5.3 per cent
— a median retention time of 22
months.
Provisional licensure enables IMGs to
practice in under-serviced communities while completing their licensing
requirements. It is used as a recruitment strategy to help alleviate the
shortage of primary care physicians in rural communities in Newfoundland
and Labrador, and elsewhere in Canada. Until this study, however, little
has been known about whether the policy has an impact on physician
retention in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In 2004, IMGs formed 23 per cent of the
physician workforce in Canada. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and
Labrador employ the highest proportion of IMGs, where they represent
61.7 per cent and 44.5 per cent of the physician workforce,
respectively.
The study concludes that provisional
licensing provides only a short-term solution to ongoing physician
shortages in Newfoundland and Labrador
— but
that eliminating it would be detrimental to the health care system.
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