KAROL KUDYBA
News Writer

In the latest news that shows I made the wrong career choice, University of Saskatchewan med students are being offered up to $100,000 over four years by local health regions simply for setting up a practice in rural Saskatchewan.

The money would come in the form of yearly bursaries and would be attached to an agreement to practice in that region after graduation.

If the student were to accept the money and then choose to leave the province instead, it would be treated as an interest-free loan.

This is a change in the philosophy of the province, who until now has been focusing on bringing in foreign graduates to fill the need for country docs and sawbones.

“A package of incentives that include new bursary programs to alleviate the financial burden of medical education would make rural communities attractive to our students, some of whom have a rural background and are indeed quite committed to making a difference to the health of their communities,” commented Femi Olatunbosun, the College of Medicine’s associate dean of faculty affairs.

However, local ladykiller Logan Kachur, a law student who won’t receive $100,000 for opening a legal practice in rural Saskatchewan, found no problem with the province’s plan.

“It’s a free market system,” said Kachur. “If there’s a need for it, they shouldn’t be faulted for taking as much money as they can.”

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a family medicine physician in Saskatchewan is paid on average $246,186 per year, falling less than $1,000 shy of the highest provincial average in Canada. However, this data was for the year 2005-06, so that number has most likely gone up since then.

While this plan will hopefully attract young big-city medicos to the prairies, Kachur does see a simpler solution.

“If you want a kid to practice in Whitewood when they’re done medical school, then you should focus on admitting kids from Whitewood,” he said. “If the health regions have all that money to hire students, maybe now I can get my damn MRI.”

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image: Flickr