wyly

yes, they need to be viable...in communist ussr there were towns/cities built that since the fall of the soviet have all but been abandoned, when the government subsidies disappeared so did the jobs and people...,

the chinese are buying our resources as they're buying them in africa it's much cheaper option than going war for them...if any country is likely to come for our resources it'll be the usa...and the resource will be water....

residencies are limited, students can choose the field of medicine they would like to specialize in and where they would like to do it but the hospitals also have a choice of who they will accept and what specialties they will offer to those who they select... as to assigning graduates to remote regions...good luck not many young mds once they've lived in a big urban area want live in the boonies.... maybe as a contractual exchange, free education time in hillbilly land they may do it for a short period....I think most would find other ways to pay for their education, as it is now our medical educational system is at full capacity with paying students....

and they have more natural resources than they know what to do with, they're not coming for ours...

wait times for surgery are dependent on the number of facilities, surgeons could easily do more surgeries to ease wait times but OR time is limited...my daughter recently had a major elective surgical procedure, she waited a year for the surgery not because the surgeon couldn't do it sooner but because he was limited to a fixed amount of surgical days, a facility/bed shortage...

hospital shortage is a factor, if there are few rural hospitals those rural patients will go to the already maxed out urban hospitals...our newest hospital cost $1 billion, how many of those do you think a province can build without complaints of tax increases...we can't afford to build billion dollar hospitals all over the province, the population density isn't large enough to support it...

and russia is completely puzzled by the canadian paranoia...Russia quietly negotiates territorial disputes with neighbour Norway but for some bizarre reason canadians think the russians are ready to invade...then there is the dispute over Hans Island with the Danes, really?... do people actually believe Denmark and canada are going to go to war over a rock?...the danes plant a flag on the rock then canada plants a flag on the rock and they both go to the UN to mediate it...

so was robert stanfield but it didn't do him any good...she's has no attraction/charisma, that shouldn't be a factor but it is...for canadians to elect the first women as PM she needs to be a lot better than the male options...

which is why it is so hard to compare countries, we don't all the extra costs and benefits involved, there are just such vast differences that straight dollars and cents comparisons fail to draw the entire picture...

russia has more oil than it knows what to do with(if they ever finish doing geological surveys on the territory likely more oil/gas than anyone) they don't need ours...russia is totally benign it's completely satisfied going through the UN to settle any territorial disputes and has already done so...russians planting a flag on the north pole seabed was as harmless norway planting a flag on the south pole as has the UK and any other country that has reached it, it's purely a "we were here" moment and nothing more... other than serach and rescue teams we don't any military in the arctic, even our military thinks it's a waste of time and money...

the best possible country to country we could find for direct comparison is australia... both large land mass with relatively small populations...

it depends on which source you use I have seen canada rated both higher and lower and virtually the same as france, we are in the ball park price wise with the euro countries, and everyone trails the USA by a considerable margin... of coarse it does a geographically smaller country has lower infrastructure costs, it's economical to build bullet trains between european cities because of population density, between canadian cities it becomes uneconomical...the same applies to hospitals and schools, economy of scale...

it's all trickle down economics again, trouble is it never trickles down...when times are bad the wealthy and corporations don't spend and those who really generate the economy with their spending the poor and middle-class can't because of austerity...

here are two...but again you don't know the unseen aspects, if you are on salary in canada you get 10days vacation pay, france is 37 days, some countries give huge discounts on (or even free) education, dental care, parental support(leave, daycare) if a MD is on salary he/she doesn't pay staff or office expenses... french social benefits- http://www.cleiss.fr/docs/regimes/regime_france/an_index.html very generous and worth a lot... http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/ http://mdsalaries.blogspot.ca/ actually our per capita cost with france is very similar, ours is a bit lower I believe...again demographic population density effect cost/access as well...and our average lifespan is equal to that of france so where are they getting better bottom line outcomes? access? sure they have more MD's per capita and better access due to geography/population density...

wasn't it gary goodyear who stopped a canadian scientist from announcing his research into when prehistoric Lake Agassiz burst it's ice damn pouring it's waters into the ocean 13,000 years ago effecting climate change in europe....he killed two birds with one stone, trying to deny there was a world before the creationist 6,000yr limit and hiding CC effecting ocean currents/climate... but he couldn't prevent an american scientist from having a news conference on it...

faux news has crossed a line from news to news/entertainment...I used to enjoy BBC news(haven't had it for years) because it was IMO very neutral in it's approach to reporting the news...

ya well they have that integrity(loss of "face") thing going on all the time...any scandal, humiliation, error in judgement, caught in a lie, etc and they resign...integrity obviously plays no part in our politics...

thanks for that backup wayward...as I said a straight comparison is very very difficult... I recall a local(calgary) news article a few years back where a MD/GP quit because he said he was working very long hours to make ends meet and after paying staff and office expenses it just wasn't worth while...his new job was as an EMT in an ambulance, he said he had fewer hours of work, less stress, none of the hassles of running a business and in the end his take home pay was better as well....

looking up salaries for MD's I see a Framer in calgary who can make $150K per is higher than the average canadian GP at 107K... but you can't only go by salary when comparing nations pay rates, there are other factors involved,social benefits(dental care, UI, maternity leave, vacation pay, etc.) ...

paying MD's less isn't going to work...our GP's are under paid, and out of that pay they need to run an office and pay staff...our GP Mds' are paid less than a number of euro countries(france, UK, netherlands, switzerland, denmark) as well many euro countries have better social benefits than we do...Denmark used offer free uni tuition(not sure that still applies)...

but harper did them one better, he appointed someone that has a religious agenda to hamstring science... the others may have been unqualified but at least they were benign...

chiropractors, or as my orthopedic MD friend calls them quackopractors, and commented "why would anyone seek medical help from a person (chiropractors) who has no university degree, that's why we have physiotherapists"

but where it counts "average lifespan" we do as well as they do with less resources...

50% per capita(50% was a quick guess I had to look up the actual stats)...france 3.37 md's per 1000, canada 2.1 md's per 1000, germany 3.4 md's per 1000...so when countries have more significantly MD's per capita than we do, a geographical area that is much more densely populated they will have better and quicker access than we do...of coarse the fraser institute which has a extreme right agenda of private health care isn't going to offer any explanation for the differences...

really? you have google at your finger tips and you come up with that?...population density Ontario-14.1 per sq Km...germany 229 per sq km...france 117 per sq km...and france has something like 50% more Mds' than we do...