Surrey needs incentives to keep doctors here as SFU med school launched: Annis

Surrey is getting a $520 million medical school that will include services to help local patients who don’t have a doctor.

But one Surrey politicians wants more work done to ensure the doctors stay in the city after they graduate.

The Simon Fraser University school of medicine is now accepting applications for its first class of future doctors, marking the launch of the first new medical school in Western Canada in nearly 60 years.

The new school will begin instruction at an interim location in August 2026. A location in Surrey City Centre has been secured for the permanent school.

The permanent home for the school of medicine will be part of the Centre Block project, a mixed-use development located in Surrey City Centre next to the SFU Surrey campus and the Surrey Central SkyTrain station. 

• The facility will occupy eight floors of the planned 12-storey building and include:
• classrooms, clinical-skills spaces, research labs, administrative offices and support areas;
• an outpatient clinic that will deliver direct health-care services for Surrey residents and provide a practical and accessible experience for students; and
• a child-care centre with 49 spaces to support the SFU Surrey community.

Surrey First Coun. Linda Annis, who is also running for mayor, wants “out-of-the-box” incentives that encourage graduates to set up practice in Surrey.

“More than 100,000 people in Surrey do not have a family doctor, so I want to look at what sort of incentives the city might provide that encourage those brand new doctors to practice where they graduated, right here in Surrey,” said Annis.

Annis she would look at foregoing residential property taxes for up to five years if a new SFU doctor bought a home and practiced in Surrey. Another option is no property taxes for five years if a graduate decides to open a clinic in Surrey within five years of graduating from SFU.

“And if an existing Surrey clinic decides to expand by hiring SFU medical school graduates, we could reduce the clinic’s property taxes for five years by 10 per cent for every grad they hire and keep in Surrey,” said Annis. “The simple fact is we need to be creative if we are going to solve the doctor shortage in our community.”

Students will receive ongoing clinical training, starting in the second month of their studies and continuing throughout their three-year program. Students will work directly with patients in community-based offices, clinics and hospitals throughout B.C. This includes providing care at an outpatient clinic at the permanent school, which will serve patients in the Surrey community.

“These two major milestones bring us closer to training the next generation of doctors right here in Surrey where they are urgently needed,” said Premier David Eby. “The new state-of-the-art SFU medical school, along with the new Surrey hospital and B.C. Cancer Centre, will make this city a hub of innovative, high-quality health care. This is just one way our government is improving health care in British Columbia and helping more people find a family doctor close to home.”

The new medical school is being developed through collaboration between the Province, Simon Fraser University, City of Surrey, First Nations Health Authority, Fraser Health Authority and the medical community.

“The news that the SFU school of medicine is accepting applications for the class of 2026 is incredibly exciting as a prospective student,” said Owen Gudmundson, an SFU undergraduate student. “Considering the extremely competitive nature of the medical school application process, the opening of a new medical school in B.C. provides students like me a greater opportunity to pursue our dreams of becoming doctors, while also providing British Columbians with more physicians to care for them.”

Students accepted into the first 48-student class can expect to hear if they are accepted in May or June 2026. The cohort is expected to increase every year until it reaches 120 students by 2035.

The anticipated capital cost of the permanent school is approximately $520 million, shared between the Province and SFU. Construction is on track to begin in late 2026, with the permanent school expected to be ready for students in fall 2030.