Four additional medical seats will be available in French on the Université de Moncton campus starting in the fall of 2019 thanks to support from the provincial government of New Brunswick.
At a press conference on Thursday, Denis Prud’homme, president and vice-chancellor of the Université de Moncton, explained that in addition to these four new seats, three seats that were previously located in Nova Scotia and one seat that was located in Prince Edward Island will be relocated to Moncton in September 2023.
The university already has 24 slots available for medical students, so starting in the following academic year, it will train 32 medical students annually in French as part of a programme run by the Université de Sherbrooke.
Catherine Savoie, a third-year medical student from Beresford, New Brunswick, told Global News in an interview that she thinks studying in her home province will increase her chances of landing a job here.
“I was raised here, and this is where my family is from.
I’d like to work as a doctor here. So studying here in Moncton allows me to network with other professionals, including all the other doctors I might have the opportunity to work with in the future, and it also gives me a real-world look at the clientele I’ll be serving, she explained.
Jacob Saucier, a different medical student, echoed the idea.
“I think it’s very important to study in the environment you will be working in for networking purposes as much as learning about the problems that are in our population, the population we will be treating,” he said.
The native of Dieppe is considering specialising in something like neurology or emergency medicine.
“Often, you have to spend two to five years at a different university (outside the province) in order to pursue specialties, so I’m picturing that, but I would dearly love to return to my hometown,” he said.
The province announced earlier this month that starting in September 2023, Dalhousie University would offer 10 medical seats previously available at Memorial University in Newfoundland at the UNB Saint John campus.
With six of them available in Quebec, this raises the total number of medical seats provided by the province to 78.
Trevor Holder, the minister of postsecondary education, training, and labour, hinted on Thursday that additional seats would be released soon.
“We are in very serious negotiations with both (Dalhousie University and the Université de Sherbrooke) about increasing our number of seats. They’re serious, and they’re taking place right now.
Next fall, Moncton will provide eight more medical seats.
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