General surgery in Canada: current scope of practice and future needs.

Background: The scope of practice of general surgeons in Canada is highly variable. The objective of this study was to examine the demographic characteristics of general surgeons in Canada and compare surgical procedures performed across community sizes and specialties.

Methods: Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information's National Physician Database were used to analyze fee-for-service (FFS) care provided by general surgeons and other providers across Canada in 2015/16.

A proposal for the curriculum and evaluation for training rural family physicians in enhanced surgical skills.

Rural western Canada relies heavily on family physicians with enhanced surgical skills (ESS) for surgical services. The recent decision by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) to recognize ESS as a "community of practice" section offers a potential home akin to family practice anesthesia and emergency medicine. To our knowledge, however, a skill set for ESS in Canada has never been described formally.

Joint position paper on rural surgery and operative delivery.

Our professional organizations have prepared this paper as part of an integrated, multidisciplinary plan to ensure the availability of well-trained practitioner teams to sustain safe, effective and high-quality rural surgical and operative delivery services. Without these robust local (or nearby) surgical services, sustaining rural maternity care is much more difficult. This paper describes the "network model" as a health human resources solution to meet the surgical needs, including operative delivery, of rural residents; outlines necessary policy directions for achieving this solution; and poses a series of enabling recommendations.