UofA medical student champions advocacy committee to talk health care

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When the province’s budget 2024 was announced, Sana Samadi said through the Alberta Medical Association’s “Urgency is Real” campaign she saw how many physicians were talking about the lack of adequate funding for health care across the province.

Seeing how physicians were bringing further awareness to the current failings of primary care was part of what influenced Samadi, a first-year medical student at the University of Alberta, to focus on the work being done at a new student committee she championed in partnership with the AMA.

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Samadi, who is the president of the AMA medical student advocacy committee, launched the group in January 2024. She said the purpose of the committee is to help medical students across the province become more involved in what is happening on the ground in the health care field.

“I viewed this from a medical school perspective — students’ perspective. Even though (my peers) are interested in family medicine and they see the crisis of family medicine, they may not want to choose family medicine because of the current state,” Samadi said.

“Why would you want to join a system that you can see is having a lot of trouble right now? We need to improve this state for the years to come so that when we do enter the workforce in three to four years in our residency years, people want to choose family medicine and not only choose family medicine but choose family medicine in Alberta as opposed to other more competitive provinces like B.C.”

Samadi said while many of her fellow students are aware of the struggles in the field, there remains a gap in how they could provide their input as current students and help advocate for the health care field. On a day-to-day basis, students are focused on exams, practicum and matching into residencies. She said there’s less focus on advocacy work.

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Samadi hopes with the new website the committee has launched, they will be able to have editorials on what the AMA does about current health care issues, how students can give their input and disseminate news on what the impacts of budget and policies will have on future physicians.

She said the province needs to not only put more funding towards primary care but also work on policies to open up more seats in medical schools.

“Most people are at least aware of some of the health care issues. It’s hard not to know it because we literally go into family doctor’s offices in order to practice and we take history from patients. At some level, there is at least a base understanding from all medical students,” Samadi said.

“It’s not so much a lack of interest in family medicine. Family medicine is a great field. I’m sure my peers agree is, it’s really diverse. But it’s simply the state in Alberta right now that’s preventing people. I think the solution to this would be to put pressure on the government.”

ctran@postmedia.com

X: @kccindytran

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