'A more diverse healthcare cohort': Program encourages students to pursue medicine
For some, becoming a doctor can seem out of reach.
In Canada, less than seven per cent of medical students come from low socio-economic backgrounds.
This is why Antoine Denis and his classmates at the McGill School of Medicine launched the Academic Immersion in Healthcare (AIH) Project.
"We wanted to make a change, basically. It has actually been shown that a more diverse health care cohort actually improves patient outcomes," said Denis.
The goal of AIH is to make medicine more attainable by showing high schoolers, through a series of videos, exactly what being a health care professional looks like.
"It actually demystifies what health care is. It shows them the health care workers actually working acutely to sort of manage a patient who is sick," Denis explained.
The program then links students like Yassine Abdellatif with resources to help them succeed.
"I know many people, many of them [are] my friends, who want to become a doctor and don't know how," said Abdellatif, who is a CEGEP student. "I think this [...] really helps people to get to their objective."
Quebec is currently facing a serious healthcare worker shortage.
"We need fresh dynamic new faces in institutions like the MUHC and the CHUM and the CHSLDs across the province of Quebec. We need an uptake of people coming in," said Naveed Hussain, a nurse with the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).
Hussain says a more diverse healthcare system would mean better care for more people.
"Sometimes you have people coming from different backgrounds and ethnicities and have different religions and different cultural upbringing[s], and when you have people that understand that you can create care plans that can be optimal for these patients."
But according to McGill paediatrics professor Dr. Saleem Razack, before the health network can become more diverse, diverse communities need more exposure and opportunities.
"I think a program like academic immersion health care is exactly the kind of thing that get students saying that they could see themselves doing this," said Dr. Razack.
Antoine Denis says that for now, the project is focused on encouraging future doctors.
But he says the plan is to expand the program to also help aspiring nurses and other healthcare professionals.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre unrepentant over calling Trudeau 'wacko' as his MPs say Speaker should resign
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.