Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Gutman, for being here. It's very interesting.
I was late because I was visiting with a delegation from the Canadian Medical Association. They're doing a lobby day today on the doctor shortage. I'm not sure if my colleagues have met with the delegations as well.
You mentioned the importance of training more geriatricians. One of the interesting points they raised was that many students going through post-secondary incur student debt. According to the figures they provided, the average medical student leaves medical school with $158,000 of debt.
So when you're looking at becoming a family physician or specializing, for the average person, cashflow becomes an issue. When choosing a field, if you have the intellectual capacity and opportunity, you may choose a field in which the income stream would be higher, allowing you to deal more effectively with the debt.
I'm going to guess that maybe geriatricians aren't on the high-income end. You mentioned income. We're humans, and taking care of our families and having a certain lifestyle are important for most people. So their suggestion was that we have to somehow weight the debt load as a sort of national priority, or do something with the cashflow so that medical students are making choices of a sub-profession based on their interests, their special loves, and the needs of the marketplace, as opposed to their own cashflow needs.
I'm wondering if you have any comments on general levels of compensation for geriatricians--because I'm sure there's a shortage--vis-à-vis professionals in other fields of medicine.