If you ask a group of smart ten years old Israeli kids what they want to be when they grow up, they will probably say they want to be scientists, engineers or pilots. In Canada it is very different. Kids are attracted to professions with uniforms. Given that green and blue uniforms are not a serious option, they will go for white (medicine) or black (law). Fearing a lawsuit, I will defer lawyers to a later time and write you the little I know about the health system.
Social preferences are well reflected at the university, which offers programs such as nursing, pharmacy, rehabilitation, biomedical engineering and even bioethics, to name only a few. They are all in high demand. The funny thing is that it is harder to get to some of these programs than to computer science. And that is without mentioning medical school itself. Here students get into medical school with university or college degree. Many degrees are not much help to find a job, and the result is that many undergraduate students will sell their soul to get into the medical school.
There is med-madness going on in America. Physicians here are angles, semi-gods, not only in their own eyes but also in the eyes of the public. The aging population, together with the belief that any problem could be solved by throwing enough money, creates huge demand for healthcare professionals. To give you a rough idea, the government of Ontario (12.5 million people) spends around 33 billion Canadian dollars a year on healthcare (in attempt to make the government more transparent,
they post the budget online). Public healthcare is free for Canadians, but due to long lines some people prefer going to private clinics. While the income of doctors is high, it is even higher in the states. As a result, many doctors moved to the states and this created shortage of doctors in Canada.
In general, the level of the doctors and equipment is about the same as in Israel. There may be a difference in the size of the facilities. Two years ago I went to several lectures on medical imaging in a hospital. Near the main door visitors are asked to wash their hands before getting in. The hall looks like a shopping mall, with a pharmacy shop, an optics shop, (healthy) food and even the
hospital's souvenirs
people were dreaming about since they were kids.
There is also a flourishing alternative health system. The city is full of stories about people who went from one doctor to another until a naturopath or a traditional Chinese doctor cured them in a week. In Chinatown you can find all the traditional Chinese herbs, which are much cheaper than western drugs. It is interesting that while westerns are losing confidence in western medicine, the people who trust it the most are Asians. Alternative treatments are also an exciting source for scientific research.
Take the prayer experiment for example (see more recent experimental evaluation). I really don't understand why the government spends so much money on medical research.
Watch this video to see how cancer can be cured in a second.
