Anesthesia in Canada

There was a guy on here a couple years ago, CanGas maybe? He wrote about his experiences moonlighting for a week at a time during residency. He posted what his billing and reimbursement were like. If he's not still on here or doesn't respond, you might be able to search it. It was pretty interesting.

Yikes, we have it better up here in Canada.

Longest days were on Cardiac where we did 2 hearts / day. Show up 6:45 am to see 1st patient if they were not in hospital early enough the night before. Patient in room 7:30. Once on pump go see 2nd patient. Generally done list 4pm and see next days patients at that time. Late day would be 7pm.

Average non-cardiac day is show up 7:15, non-late rooms finish 3:30-4. Late room runs to 6pm but generally you are relieved at 5pm or so by the on-call resident.

Call is maximum 6/28 days. Maximum 1 x 1:3 call. Maximum 2 weekend calls (weekend counts as Friday night, Saturday, or Sunday). Senior guys tend to make the call schedule so usually do 1 x Friday, 1 x Sunday. Post call day is off at 7am when day team arrives.

Salaries vary by province but range from $ 40 544 - $50,957 as an R1 to $57 252 - $70,896 as an R5 (Anesthesia residency is 5 years in Canada). http://www.carms.ca/eng/r1_program_salaries_e.shtml

Average income is around $350k in the poorer provinces to $500k+ in the richer provinces (Alberta) - yes that is straight FFS - no salary/partnership crap). That and we don't (mostly anyways) have uninsured patients so you get paid for every case you do, only a single payer in each province (easy billing - can do without billing agents), a single country wide malpractice company (no issues of moving to another province/tail coverage), free (well included in taxes) healthcare, a tax rate around 34% once you incorporate, and a dollar that is close to par with the US and a banking system that has some effective bloody regulation to avoid the crap that is killing our and the worlds economy (ahem, sorry about that but I'm a little pissed looking at my retirement savings lose all my gains over the last 5 fricken years while the bast ards responsible get a bloody bailout, keep their CEO bonuses and go on nice company retreats to plan on how to say they are sorry for the mess but can they have some more money).

All you have to do is put up with our winters.

CanGas

A new graduate from the USA would likely do better in Canada over the next ten years than in the USA. Sad but true. However, as CAnGas has pointed out they have a 5 year Residency requirement while we have 4 years. So, a Fellowship year would be mandatory for most Canadian licensures.

.According to posters on SDN, anesthesiologists will experience major pay cuts after the proposed healthcare reform. As of today, $350k Canadian dollars come out to $320k US dollars. With better lifestyle and compensation, will we see our anesthesiologists crossing the border? .

BLADEMDA said:

A new graduate from the USA would likely do better in Canada over the next ten years than in the USA. Sad but true. However, as CAnGas has pointed out they have a 5 year Residency requirement while we have 4 years. So, a Fellowship year would be mandatory for most Canadian licensures.

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Not a fellowship year, but an entire year of critical care is required. Plus you would have to sit for the Canadian written and oral boards.

What do people here think of the Canadian anesthesia workforce model, where the "midlevels," concentrated in exurban, rural and remote hospitals and doing lower-score cases, are physicians, with family practice residencies plus 1 year accredited postgraduate training in FP Anesthesia? And some grandfathered GP anesthetists. AAs and Anesthesia Care NPs are entering the picture only very recently.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...ies+across+Metro+Vancouver/1878506/story.html

VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.

Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million. (continued at the link)

gtb said:

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...ies+across+Metro+Vancouver/1878506/story.html

VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.

Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million. (continued at the link)

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Well... at least they still have hospitals .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28394340/

I've done some shadowing here in Vancouver. I never asked (would consider it rude?), but the guys/gal who volunteered all said the average was about 400k/year. A bit more or less depending on how hard you want to work, what kind of environment you want to work in, etc. Most hospitals are fee for service/billing all your cases, which I think means they are self-employed with no benefits or vacation? Not too sure on that...

gtb said:

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...ies+across+Metro+Vancouver/1878506/story.html

VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.

Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million. (continued at the link)

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Gotta love it...the truth is we are only spending such a small fraction of the GDP on health care. If we spent as much as the US, we'd probably chop out all of the problems we are facing now.