Perspectives of non–family medicine learners also important

We thank Nutik et al for their article, “Top influences and concerns of residents selecting a career in family medicine. Call to action for educators,” published in the June 2025 special research issue of Canadian Family Physician.¹ They bring attention to a critical component of the primary care crisis in Canada: the recruitment of the next generation of family physicians. We agree studying the factors influencing the selection of family medicine as a career is crucial to finding solutions to the primary care crisis.

The questions the University of Toronto added to its Family Medicine Longitudinal Survey (FMLS) are aptly designed to find solutions in recruitment of family medicine residents. We would like to emphasize some of Nutik et al’s findings may not be generalizable to all Canadian family medicine residency programs. As an example, based on information from the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS), in 2025 the University of Toronto represented 10% of all family medicine residency spots.² This underscores the need to have a national approach to understanding factors influencing the selection of family medicine as a discipline.

Additionally, the FMLS is distributed via family medicine residency programs to current or recently graduated family medicine residents. Because of this, there exists a survivorship bias; insights are drawn only from residents who applied and were accepted to family medicine residency. The perspectives of medical school graduates who either do not apply to family medicine or do not rank family medicine above another specialty during their CaRMS applications are not captured in these data. By limiting the data to only learners who have already chosen to pursue training in family medicine, we are left without guidance on how to foster interest among those who otherwise would not choose to pursue family medicine training.

Again, we thank the authors for their publication and support their call to action to increase learner interest in family medicine.

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