Published Reports

Wait times. Position Statement.

All Canadians should be given an opportunity to have a family doctor to ensure universal access to medically necessary health care services.  Each province/territory must ensure care is provided for its population within the pan-Canadian wait times benchmarks and targets.  Standardized pan-Canadian criteria defining eligibility of patients to be entered onto wait lists must be developed by an expert panel, including family physicians.

An approach to maternity care education for Canadian family medicine residents. Discussion Paper.

Approach to maternity care education for Canadian family medicine residents. Competence in maternity and newborn care is a prerequisite for Certification in Family Medicine in Canada. 

Pan-Canadian physical activity strategy.

CAL is a national action group of more than 100 organizations committed to making sure that the environments where we live, learn, commute, work and play support regular physical activity. CAL is working to achieve this goal by advocating for public policies that support physical activity.

Policy on rural practice and rural health 2001.

This Policy on Rural Practice and Rural Health contains strategies to assist governments and professional bodies to ensure that real progress is made toward the goal of improving the health of rural people. These strategies were developed over the six year period following the establishment of the WONCA Working Pa

Policy on quality and effectiveness of rural health care.

An environmental scan of practice-based research networks in Canada as of May 2006.

 The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) commissioned this environmental scan with a view to ascertaining the range of practice-based research network (PBRN) activity among primary care providers across the country as well as the diversity of health care research networks.

Family physicians and other specialists: Working and learning together. Conjoint Discussion Paper.

The CFPC and The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) addressed the issues surrounding the relationships between family physicians and other specialists in a two day Colloquium, with the goal of improving working and learning relationships to enhance patient care, and patient and physician satisfaction.

When the clock starts ticking: Wait times in primary care. Discussion Paper.

For many years the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) has advocated on behalf of Canadians for appropriate and timely access to all aspects of health care through their family physicians. The College’s positions have taken into account the needs of Canadians as patients waiting in line to receive services throughout the continuum of their health care. This includes not just the wait time between the first visit with a consulting specialist and the patient’s definitive procedure, surgery or treatment – but also the time between the patient’s first visit with his/her family physician and when required, a subsequent visit with a consultant. It also includes the time it takes for a Canadian who does not have a family physician to find one. 

Rethinking undergraduate medical education. A view from family medicine. Discussion Paper.

Rethinking undergraduate medical education. Undergraduate medical education has improved dramatically in the past century, but it is still fundamentally flawed by the dominance of an outmoded biomedical model that pervades the curriculum. There is widespread recognition that medical education must change to keep up with the transformations in medical practice and the expanding understanding of how people learn.

Policy on dietary sodium.

Dietary Sodium Given that the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has established a daily Adequate Intake (AI) for sodium of 1200 mg and a daily Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of 2300 mg for healthy adults, and these values have been adopted by the Canadian and American governments for setting public