Adding 2 medical residency seats 'big news for P.E.I.'

The expansion of P.E.I.'s medical residency program, from five seats to seven, is the culmination of a lot of hard work and co-ordination, says the Island's site director for Dalhousie's medical school.

Medical residency is a two-year period of study following graduation from medical school. The residents are doctors, but still in training before they become fully licensed. For a jurisdiction offering the residency, it is an opportunity to entice a young doctor to stay and practise in the place where they get their first professional experience.

"This is big news for P.E.I.," said P.E.I. site director Dr. Padraig Casey.

"It's quite a large undertaking to add a learner to your system. It requires a huge amount of planning and forethought."

The two new seats will be added next summer.

P.E.I. has a pretty good record for retaining residents, said Casey, which makes adding seats an important step forward in the goal of attracting young doctors.

The Medical Association of P.E.I. has said the province retains four out of five of its medical residents.

The process is, however, complicated because it requires co-ordination between three groups.

The province has to pay for the seats, Health P.E.I. has to run it, and Dalhousie has to accredit it.

At the centre of any residency program is finding doctors to train the residents, who in that role are known as preceptors.

"It's quite an imposition on that physician's time, but they're delighted to do [it] because they know that the payback for P.E.I. is that we train doctors that, hopefully, some of whom will want to stay," said Casey.

It is a large commitment, typically taking up about 20 per cent of a doctor's time.

Finding the space for residents to do their work is one of the biggest hurdles in expanding the program, said Casey. Space at Charlottetown's Queen Elizabeth Hospital is particularly cramped, he said.

He is hopeful, however, that the ongoing creation of medical homes across the province will provide more space for learners and may make further expansion possible, with perhaps another two seats in 2026 or 2027.