Young doctors will earn $321,000 in their first year under a new provincial incentive program
The Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday that it had hired 54 new doctors to provide full-service primary care in communities throughout B.C.
This came after the ministry offered an incentive package to recent family medicine graduates through a “new-to-practice family physician contract program”.
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Under the deal, new family physicians are paid $296,000 in their first year plus a $25,000 signing bonus, medical training and student debt forgiveness of up to $50,000 for the first year and up to $20,000 for years two to five.
Doctors also receive a $75,000 payment to go toward overhead costs for their host clinic.
Along with the 54 contracts signed, more than 60 family physicians are in discussions about suitable clinical placements and the terms of the contract. Since June 2022, 140 new family physicians have expressed interest in the incentives.
The incentives are part of B.C.’s Health Human Resources Strategy to improve and increase access to health care for people.
Other actions to help patients get continued access to primary care services include $118 million in stabilization funding to support family doctors in the province.
This comes as the province deals with an acute shortage of family doctors and a general crisis in the health care system.
According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. there are 7,229 family doctors in the province.
