Getting word that the announced plan to reduce the number of residency spots in Ontario for 2017 has been pushed back to 2018 pending a review. Word was initially that these were to be CMG spots, a statement which then got unofficially amended to being IMG positions. Either way, if any cuts do happen, it sounds like it won't happen this year.
Obviously I wish this pause for analysis would have happened before the first round of cuts occurred for this cycle, but I guess I can't object to a better-late-than-never situation. This year's reduction in residency spots was tempered during implementation and still seems to have had some minor negative effects.
I'm not all that opposed to reducing residency spots in general. We're stretching our educational resources a bit thin as it is and there's reasonable cause to believe we have or are heading towards an oversupply of physicians. However, a straight cut to CMG spots is a fairly terrible way to go about it. CMG spots should be cut only after medical school spots get reduced. Alternatively, my preferred approach would be an elimination of IMG spots, particularly in fields with already-poor job prospects (CMG spot cuts tend to get absorbed by IMGs anyway, just in a more messy, convoluted manner).
I'm hoping this pause in reduction of residency spots signals the start of an effort to be more deliberative in human resources planning in medicine, because right now it's a bit of a mess. Far too many actors involved in the decision-making process at various steps, few with enough information to make effective choices and rarely working in conjunction with other actors. However, if this is just a pause and not part of a greater strategy, this isn't much of a win.
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