Residency costs Upon graduation from medical school, students must pursue 2 to 7 years of postgraduate training to obtain a license to practise medicine. 6 Residents are also required to work long hours in hospitals and other clinical settings and have frequent on-call responsibilities. Although residents do receive a salary for this work, the remuneration is relatively modest when these factors are considered. The CMA opposes tuition fees for residents. While the CMA s opposition to residency tuition is based on a number of factors not limited to its financial impact, clearly, tuition fees exacerbate debt.
Some specialties require capital investment over and above the basic start-up costs.
These expenses will add to the significant debt that new physicians will bear in the next few years. In addition to significantly higher debt load than the previous generation of new physicians, a number of factors may influence the net income of doctors and their ability to pay off debts. These include billing caps, stagnant fees for services, high malpractice insurance fees, overhead expenses, and increasing non-remunerative administrative responsibilities. In summary, the CMA believes that high tuition fees, coupled with insufficient financial support systems, may have a significant impact on not only current and potential medical students, but also the Canadian health care system and public access to medical services. Any tuition increase should be regulated and reasonable.