Canada

The people behind a year-old medical school dedicated solely to turning out family doctors say the small program based in Oshawa, Ont., is disrupting traditional medical education in a way that could help solve Canada's shortage of family physicians.

"The big idea here is to preselect a group of students who not only want to become doctors, but they want to become family doctors, and right from the outset to surround them with all the wonders of family medicine," said Dr. Jane Philpott, dean of Queen's University's Faculty of Health Sciences, and former federal health minister.

But critics say, while it's a good initiative, the effort is a drop in the bucket and that solutions to the overwhelming primary care shortage lie elsewhere — from training more nurse practitioners to removing barriers for foreign-trained doctors.