The College of Family Physician’s misguided academic exercise of changing the qualifications for a family medicine specialization to three years from two will beautifully exemplify the law of unintended consequences and drive many to seek other higher-income specialties that require four to five years of training.

Amazing to me that those family doctors who have recently completed their residencies and passed all the myriad of qualifying exams are now , in a backhanded way, being told by the same certification body that they now are considered to have had inadequate training for the times we are in. What is the difference between now and 2027 that will make such a difference? Nothing. The decision is political pandering in nature with little evidence to show that it will make any difference to patient care.

Desperate and vulnerable Quebec patients are using their life savings to pay for knee and hip replacements because they cannot wait any longer. This should not have to be but our failing system refuses to acknowledge what has to be done to fix it.

Your Calls and Comments:

• What is dialysis and are there alternative that can be used instead?
• Availability of Wegovy (semaglutide) in Canada
• Is it better to take a multivitamin or individual vitamins for specific vitamin deficiencies?
• Treatment of urinary retention in a man with an enlarged prostate gland
• A 65 year-old caller is concerned about dependency on Reactine, an anti-histamine that is working well for her. There is no dependency.