Federal funding at Western hopes to delve into family doctor shortage

Schulich Medicine & Dentistry professor Maria Mathews and a collaborative team are researching the business of family medicine and how it impacts the number of physicians in the workforce. (Source: Mac Lai/Schulich Medicine & Dentistry)

Researchers at Western University have received a total of $10.7 million in federal funding for various programs studying the practice of family physicians in Canada.

The focus of one of the project grants is to help delve deeper into how family doctors are paid, with hopes that findings can begin to address the critical shortage of primary care providers in Canada, utilizing the data to inform workforce planning for future practitioners.

“Income influences family physicians’ work-life decisions, including whether they want to practice comprehensive family medicine, how many patients they serve in their practice and when they want to retire,” said Maria Mathews, professor in family medicine. “All these decisions affect workforce capacity – that is, how many family physicians we need to care for the population.”

The project will bring to the table the expertise of researchers, family physicians and policymakers.

Studies hope to uncover the direct relationship between how billing works in a public healthcare setting, and how that directly translates to compensation.

The funding will help bring to life eight research projects projects and fund six priority announcements.