This week’s event was all about valuing our faculty members, recognizing them for their contributions to education and hearing from our students as the Manitoba Medical Students’ Association presented its annual teaching awards for teaching excellence in Med I, Med II and by residents and clinicians.

Our students lauded their University of Manitoba professors for sharing their clinical experience, teaching them to think critically and helping them to become caring and competent physicians.

In his keynote address on the state of Canada’s health-care system, Simpson warned the students that the environment in which they will practice will be very different from today given that we are on the cusp of an aging population where there will be fewer working people to tax and costs are increasing to meet the expanding health-care needs.

He noted that from 2004 to 2011 our health-care spending across the board in Canada has gone up about seven per cent a year that is way beyond the population growth and inflation; way beyond the increase in government revenues; and way beyond the spending in any other government program.

“The baby boomers began to turn 65 two years ago. Today 14 per cent of the population is 65 years of age or more; by 2020 that will probably be in the range of 20 per; by 2030 it will be in the range of 26 to 30 per cent. No cohort of Canadians has ever seen that kind of demography,” he said.

Simpson also cautioned that “the kind of money that our society poured into health care starting in 2004 has come to an end.” He said physicians will need to find new and less costly ways of delivering care while improving quality in the process.

“Change is going to mean a variety of things: scope of practices will have to change to allow more standardized procedures can be done by qualified individuals at lower cost be it pharmacists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants,” he said, adding change also means realizing that physicians in Canada by international standards are paid 2nd highest for specialists and 5th highest for general practitioners.

Simpson impressed upon the students the responsibility that goes along with their future roles as physicians in this new, changing environment:

“Almost by definition in any walk of life those just setting forth on their careers have fresh perspectives… Physicians can be a force for positive change,” he said.

Congratulations to all nominees and to the 2011/12 MMSA Teaching Award Winners:
• Teaching Excellence, Medicine I: Dr. Adrian Gooi
• Most Outstanding Course, Medicine I: Cardiovascular
• Teaching Excellence, Medicine II: Dr. Maria Vrontakis-Lautatzis
• Most Outstanding Course, Medicine II: Nephrology
• Most Outstanding Resident: Dr. Joann James
• Most Outstanding Clinician: Dr. Faisal Al-Somali

Do universities value teaching enough?