2026-09-10 from healthydebate.ca
Lying in a cold operating room surrounded by the health-care team, I watched trainees gather around to observe my surgery. Their presence was anticipated, given the central role hospitals play in health?professions education. Yet as I lay there, vulnerable and exposed, I felt less like a person and more like a teaching case.
That experience revealed something larger: an educational system that continues to centre around hospital?based observation even as many patient needs are shaped well beyond hospital walls. What unfolded in that OR was not an isolated moment, but a reflection of a broader structural misalignment in how health professionals are trained.
Canada’s main response to its health?workforce shortage has been to train more health professionals. But more trainees do not automatically mean a better?prepared workforce, nor do they guarantee better care if education remains disconnected from the needs of patients and communities.
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