As Criminals in Love Takes Centre Stage At the Hart House Theatre, the newspaper Interviews Director Andrea Wasserman
In Honour of The Health Issue, the newspaper Explores Alternative Medicine
the newspaper
November 22 2007 Vol. XXX No. XI
January 17 2008 Vol. XXX No. XV
www.thenewspaper.ca
toronto’s student community paper
Health Doctor Shortage So Long And Canada in Ontario Thanks For All The Anal Despite Lack of MDs Books About Ontario is Toiling Due to Donors Strict Protectionist New Law Bans Gay Men From Organ Donation By Matthew Pope Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the closet… *cue music* From the people who brought you The Definition of Marriage comes a new threat… Health Canada.
“...defenders of the legislation say that it is not an anti-gay mandate...” It has recently been publicized that Health Canada quietly slipped legislation through in December barring gay men from donating their organs. The new regulations stipulate that any gay man that has been sexually active within the last 5 years cannot be considered for organ donation. If you haven’t heard about it yet, don’t worry; even the head of Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network, Dr. Gary Levy, didn’t know about the changes either. Fear not, gentle reader, the newspaper is on the case. You can expect further discussion on this to follow next week, sans the tasteless sarcastic editorializing. In the meantime, consider the following: defenders of the legislation say that it is not an anti-gay mandate but simply a tightening of regulations intended to exclude highrisk donors (IV drug users are amongst other high-risk groups named in the bill). If this is the case, then why are See Donor cont. pg. 6
Immigration Laws
By Nina Manasan You don’t need to be a medical student to know that the road to becoming a doctor is not the smoothest. It is a path lined with intense medical instruction and fierce competition. Still, at the end of eight years, a tenacious few manage to pull through and call themselves doctors. Now imagine successfully attaining this status, only to repeat the entire process all over again. For so many international medical graduates (IMGs) or foreign-trained medical professionals in Ontario, this is the reality. In the midst of an increasingly diverse society, the Ontario Ministry of Health doesn’t make it easy for immigrating medical professionals to practice here. To be certified as a physician in Ontario, IMGs must not only pass a slew of written exams -the MCCEEsintended to demonstrate the quality of their medical knowledge, but they must also undergo up to 5 years of residency and training. Only after completing these medical and educational requirements, can IMGs even qualify to take the certification exams. But perhaps the greatest obstacle IMGs face is being approved to take
the exams or accepted into residency programs. Access to both options are conditioned by close evaluation of their medical degrees, short-answer tests, file reviews and interviews. The Ministry offers 200 more residency positions to IMGs annually through the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS), although many of these spaces are left vacant by candidates who are deemed unqualified to fill them. Generally speaking, the limitation on foreign-trained doctors is designed to maintain the highest standard of medical care in Canada, by weeding out those who do not meet it. However, it is also a system that tends to overlook so many deserving physicians whose See IMGs cont. pg. 5
Bestselling Author and Renowned UofT Professor Says Good-Bye to Toronto By Sean Liliani While Research In Motion(RIM) Co-CEO Jim Balsillie failed to bring Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburg Penguins to Waterloo, it was revealed yesterday that the BlackBerry Billionaire has made an acquisition equally impressive to the academic community. Wednesday’s Globe and Mail marked the first public conformation that UofT veteran Thomas (Tad) Homer-Dixon was relocating to Waterloo. After finishing his Ph.D. at MIT in 1989, Homer-Dixon came to Toronto and soon thereafter made his mark as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of societal complexities. With a versatile ability to disseminate information from a variety of fields, his work has managed to translate academic research into bestselling books. Tad’s unique understanding of global issues is what al-
lows him to fit so well at the Balsillie School for International Affairs, explains UoW Dean of Arts, Ken Coats. “We think there’s a tremendous synergy between the way Tad approaches scholarship and the kind of things we’re trying to build at the Balsillie School.” Coats will effectively become Homer-Dixon’s new boss at the Balsillie School and is especially excited about the environmental research that this professor will bring to the think tank. “His work in the last little while on environmental change, the speed of change, and societal ability to respond has really done a lot to set the intellectual tone for discussions that are going on in Canada and around the world… we’re absolutely thrilled to have him joining us.” See Tad cont. pg. 4