Expanded Medical Training Now Underway

August 30, 2004

The first medical students to take part in the BC Liberal government's expanded medical training program were welcomed by Advanced Education Minister Shirley Bond today as they started classes at the University of British Columbia.

“Expanding training for medical students is critical to our ability to recruit and retain doctors in all areas of the province, especially in rural and remote communities,” said Bond. “That’s why we acted quickly to put the infrastructure and program in place to ensure that well-qualified students who want to train and work in British Columbia have more opportunity to do so.”

Did you know? In March 2002, the government announced that the University of British Columbia’s medical school would be expanded, and committed $134 million to build the facilities to accommodate new training spaces. In a unique collaboration, UBC worked with the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Victoria to form a distributed learning model that allows medical training to take place in three different geographic regions. The investment includes equipping the facilities with state-of-the-art technology that supports the distributed learning model.

Today 200 medical students, 72 more than last year, began their first semester at UBC’s Vancouver campus. In January 2005, 24 of them will move from UBC to the northern medical program at UNBC, and 24 will move to the Island medical program at UVic. Following the completion of their training, these students will go on to complete their residencies in rural and remote communities in the North and on the Island. Students from all three programs will receive degrees granted by UBC.

“We are providing British Columbians with access to quality health care in all regions of the province, which starts with training and supporting health care professionals,” said Colin Hansen, Minister of Health Services. “Increasing the number of medical school graduates over the next five years is a key commitment in our long-term health human resource strategy.”

The expanded medical training will almost double the number of UBC’s first-year medical school spaces from the current 128 spaces to 224 by 2005-06. It will be the first expansion of medical school spaces in B.C. in 20 years.
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