Beijing medical schools seek help filling a chronic shortage of family doctors
Today, Catharine Whiteside, Dean of the U of T’s Faculty of Medicine and Lynn Wilson, Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and other members of the faculty’s delegation met with leaders from Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and Capital Medical University (CMU) to explore partnerships in family medicine in Beijing.
In Canada, 51% of all physicians are involved in delivering primary care. In China, only 3% of all physicians are family doctors – a situation that strains the Chinese health care system generally, and hospitals in particular. To help remedy this, the Chinese government wants to train 100,000 family physicians by 2020.
“Developing an effective primary care system in China will not only help improve the health of people and their communities, it would also allow China to sustain and enhance its economic growth. We’re helping select Chinese universities build capacity in primary care practice and education by sharing our department’s innovations — such as our academic family health teams,” says Professor Wilson.
U of T Medicine has the largest Family Medicine training program in North America and trains more than one-third of all family physicians in Ontario. We also have expertise in addressing the policy challenges and other barriers that get in the way of a strong primary care system. PUMC and CMU are looking to tap into that expertise by building on existing partnerships with U of T.
Future agreements could see Chinese government and university officials harness the Faculty’s strengths — transforming China’s health agenda with specific focus on primary care, health systems and administration and chronic and infectious disease prevention.
QUICK FACTS:
• The U of T’s Department of Family and Community Medicine is North America’s largest Department of Family Medicine.
• The department has over 1200 faculty, 400 postgraduate trainees, 259 clinical clerks, 26 funded researchers and a broad array of fellows and elective students.
• PUMC has 5,000 students and CMU and its affiliates have 9,000 students
LEARN MORE:
• Watch a video about the impact being made by the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine
• See what programs are offered by The Department of Family and Community Medicine
