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NOSM adopts the Okanagan Charter

Prioritizing health and wellbeing is a leading priority as a medical university.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) becomes an official signatory of the Okanagan Charter.

“The health and well-being of NOSM learners, faculty and staff is a top priority as we transition from a medical school to a university,” says Dr. Sarita Verma, NOSM Dean, President and CEO. “Research shows us that individuals who are well are more creative, engaged, productive, and have a stronger sense of community. It’s important for the entire NOSM community to focus on wellness as we look to the future—a future where access to equitable, quality health care for all Northerners is a reality.”

The Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting University and Colleges provides the principles and framework required to become a campus that promotes health and well-being. The Charter focuses on “the health and sustainability of current and future societies with a shared vision to strengthen communities and contribute to the well-being of people, places and the planet.”
The guiding principles of the Okanagan Charter are embedded in The NOSM Challenge 2025, the School’s five-year strategic plan. These actions include NOSM’s commitment to:

  • Living the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion;
  • Developing a global health strategy founded in principles of social accountability;
  • Making strategic investments in our people, resources and infrastructure;
  • Encouraging creativity;
  • Supporting the well-being of the NOSM community;
  • Rewarding innovation; and,
  • Eliminating bureaucracy.

As a signatory, NOSM joins a network of national and international universities and colleges who commit to promoting health and well-being with the mutual understanding that it is essential to achieving a school’s full potential in teaching and learning, research and engagement.

The Canadian Health Promoting Campuses Network is guided by the Okanagan Charter, calling on all post-secondary schools to embed health into all aspects of campus culture, across the administration, operations and academic mandates and to lead health promotion action and collaboration locally and globally.

Over the last year, NOSM has made great strides to increase the focus on wellness. Dr. Joseph LeBlanc was named the inaugural Associate Dean, Equity and Inclusion and the Respect the DifferenceTM movement was launched.

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The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) is an award-winning socially accountable medical school renowned for its innovative model of distributed, community-engaged education and research. With a focus on diversity, inclusion, and advocacy for health equity, NOSM relies on the commitment and expertise of the peoples and communities of Northern Ontario to educate health-care professionals to practise in Indigenous, Francophone, rural, remote and underserved communities.

For further information, please contact: news@nosm.ca

In the Spotlight, Indigenous Stories, Uncategorized

Indigenous communities create virtual experiences for NOSM students

Spending four weeks in a remote, rural or fly-in Indigenous community is typically a rite of passage for first-year medical students at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), but the pandemic put a halt to all travel in 2020.

The School has earned a national and international reputation for offering in-community experiences that help students gain both a cultural understanding of Indigenous communities and a feel for the broad range of health inequities and barriers to care that exist in Northern Ontario. In the midst of the pandemic, it was not possible to send students into communities.

It was decided the safest option was, for the first time ever, to deliver the immersive experiences online. Indigenous Local Community Coordinators (LCCs)—who organise placements in their home communities—got creative and found a workable alternative.

“The LCCs worked with flexibility and the willingness to do things differently, even though they faced significant planning challenges,” says Sam Senecal, Community Coordinator who has been supporting First Nation communities and the LCCs for 16 years. “It wasn’t easy,” says Sam.

“I was concerned about finding Elders and speakers that would be willing to speak through a virtual platform, and not having the students experience ceremonies and cultural activities,” says  Jennifer Hulmes, LCC and Health Promoter in Wassay Gezhig Na Nah Deh We’igamig located in the Obashkaandagaang (Washagamis Bay) First Nation, near Kenora. Yet, in the end, Jennifer says the students were still able to relate and connect with the speakers. “This stood out and pleasantly shocked me,” she says.

Although virtual programming isn’t ideal, Jennifer says it did provide an effective temporary solution. “The virtual placement has been very successful for what the students needed during these unprecedented times. Once we are able to, I do believe the in-person placement is more beneficial to the students for them to truly understand and take in the Anishinaabe culture.”

For several other Indigenous communities, the shift to virtual learning meant cancelling rich cultural experiences like sitting with Elders, feasts with community members and time out on the land. Instead of the usual 20 hours of blended cultural and clinical time when students go to community clinics and learn from a primary care physician or nurse practitioner, communities agreed it was more reasonable to organise 10 hours of planned online learning experiences.

Tammi Shaw, a NOSM LCC and a Diabetes Prevention Worker in Biitgitong Anishnaabeg First Nation (Ojibways of Pic River), recalls a moment that stood out. “One of the sessions that I believe was the most valuable was the teaching and making of the Medicine Wheel. It is definitely an amazing tool,” says Tammi. “I believe the students got so much more from it than they expected. There is great importance in wholistic health and the Medicine Wheel is a great tool that shows our spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental self, and the importance of balance.”

Internet issues, coupled with mother nature, posed other uncertainties, says Eileen Boissoneau. She is the Health Director in Mattagami First Nation located 110 kms southwest of Timmins. Eileen says she was able to overcome the drastic change in bad weather that prevented scheduled events from being held. “As opposed to a virtual live session, we worked with pre-recorded sessions as a way to fill the gap during cancellations,” she says.

Eileen said the highlight was a comment received by a student during the evaluation session that was very inspiring. “The comment was ‘I plan to visit the community in the future.’ A seed was planted for this student to consider serving a remote location after graduation,” says Eileen. And after all, this is what the placements are all about.

Indigenous community placements at NOSM are part of the School’s unique social accountability mandate and are intended to shape and inspire learners to consider living and practising in an Indigenous, remote or rural community. NOSM currently partners with 42 Indigenous communities and organisations who have signed long term partnership agreements to host NOSM medical students. The long-term partnership provides a framework to ensure a successful, mutually beneficial placement for both the community and students.

Read and watch more about Local Community Coordinators
NOSM celebrates 15 years working with Local Community Coordinators

*Note: The group photo of the Local Community Coordinators (LCCs) was taken prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Northern Routes

NOSM MD Program receives full accreditation: What happens next?

NOSM became the first medical school to complete a two-step virtual accreditation visit for an MD program late last year.

This extensive, voluntary peer-evaluation process is critical to ensuring compliance with accepted standards for educational quality. Through accreditation, the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) provides assurance to medical students, graduates, the medical profession, health-care institutions, health authorities, regulatory authorities and—importantly, the public—that educational programs culminating in the award of the MD degree meet reasonable, generally-accepted, and appropriate national standards for educational quality.

CACMS has submitted their findings, and I’m pleased to share that NOSM has maintained its full accreditation of the MD program. As the saying goes, “it takes a village.” I extend my sincere gratitude to everyone who played a role in seeing us through this process. I want to acknowledge the work of the medical school self-study teams (which included NOSM faculty, staff and students), John Friesen, Cathy Powell, Dr. Catherine Cervin and all those who work with the MD program. Thank you to Drs. Lee Toner, Brian Ross and David Musson, NOSM’s current and former Associate Deans, who led the School through this accreditation process at different times over the past eight years.

I’m proud of the NOSM community for taking on the challenge, committing themselves to continuous quality improvements and being dedicated to finding solutions to obstacles, which are often beyond our control. Thank you to our stakeholders, including communities, health-care centres and hospitals, who truly make this a real team effort. We can all be proud of the many accomplishments and improvements we have implemented over the last several years which benefits our learners, learning environment, faculty and our MD program.

Recently, CACMS and the American Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) came to an agreement that LCME would no longer review—but would continue to accredit—Canadian schools until 2025. This accreditation for NOSM will be amongst the first in Canada’s medical schools to be accredited by CACMS alone. Another historic first!

During the accreditation process, one of NOSM’s degree granting universities declared insolvency, which had a major financial impact on the school and certain standards of accreditation. Legislation to make NOSM a stand-alone degree granting institution was proposed and received Royal Assent. The CACMS report has taken into account these changes, I am pleased to tell you that NOSM University will continue to be fully accredited by CACMS and LCME.

Accreditation is an ongoing process. In fact, this accreditation cycle began shortly after our last review in 2012. I can assure you that the NOSM community has worked tirelessly to address all issues that required attention. And the work is not done. Of the total 95 elements that are required, the report identifies 10 elements which are “unsatisfactory” and 13 elements are “satisfactory with monitoring.” The issues raised by the Laurentian University insolvency, as one of our two degree granting institutions for the MD, played a key role in this outcome. Our strengths continue to be our award winning curriculum, the focus on social accountability and the excellence of our students, staff and faculty.

NOSM must address the areas of non-compliance within a specified time frame. This requires an action plan by August 2021, a new data submission by August 2022, and a limited follow up review in October 2022.  Dr. Lee Toner, John Friesen, and their team will continue their work on these elements. They will have my unequivocal support.

To be very clear, NOSM’s MD program is fully accredited.

As a self-regulated profession, we have a collective responsibility to make sure we stay ahead of change. Now that Canadian medical schools have our own accreditation of MD programs, we have an opportunity to be even more responsive to our unique Canadian needs. For NOSM University, it means we will continue to focus on the specific needs of Northern Ontario.

Next up, is the accreditation visit of the residency programs by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). This is scheduled to occur in November 2021. Stay tuned for reminders from Dr. Robert Anderson, Associate Dean, Postgraduate Medical Education and Health Sciences and the PGME Office over the next few months. A recent ‘mock accreditation’ identified the work needed to meet the standards in NOSM’s residency programs. Similar issues were raised such as: wellness, untimely student and faculty evaluation, lack of clarity about roles, and procedures for accommodations and complaints. In both the MD and residency programs, we must do better.

The accreditation of our programs is a key metric of our success. The goal is to contribute to the provision of high-quality and safe health-care services and to improve patients’ health outcomes where our graduates choose to practice. I am incredibly proud of NOSM’s MD program.

Finally, this week marks a milestone for me. It is the end of my second year here as Dean, President and CEO of NOSM. It has been quite a ride. The highlights are already historic – a pandemic, a partner’s insolvency, and a new NOSM University Act. What’s next?

Miigwetch, thank you, marsi, merci,

Dr. Sarita Verma
Dean, President and CEO
Northern Ontario School of Medicine

If you have any feedback or comments, please reach out at dean@nosm.ca and follow me on twitter @ddsv3.

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NOSM University

We are planning a series of consultations over the summer to ask your valued thoughts on the future of NOSM U. Do you have a meeting or event planned where a discussion on NOSM U would be valuable? Do you have comments or questions? Please see nosm.ca/nosmu and send questions to nosmu@nosm.ca.

Welcome to NOSM’s new residents

At the end of day on June 30, you have transitioned from a medical student to a resident doctor and the residents before you become independent, practising doctors. It’s always such an exciting time, yet these transitions can be equally unnerving. We care for our learners and alumni and protect your wellness. Welcome to NOSM! I hope you enjoy postgrad. It is the best experience here.

MCCQE II Update

The Medical Council of Canada (MCC) confirmed that it is “stepping away” from the MCC Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part II. The MCC Council updated criteria informing policy on the granting of the Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC) to candidates meeting requirements listed on the MCC website.

New Indigenous Medical Education Site

NOSM is committed to continuing to build with First Nations and Métis peoples of Northern Ontario to promote a healthier North, minobimaadziwin. The Indigenous Affairs Unit recently updated the NOSM website to include inspirational stories, resources and reports, and detailed information for Indigenous applications to the MD program.

Community Report 

I’m proud to introduce you to a new type of report that brings the spirit of our medical school to life. You will hear from our NOSM community directly—those motivated to make quality health care accessible to everyone in the region. Learn more at report.nosm.ca.

Inaugural Academic Director of NOSM’s Centre for Social Accountability

Dr. Erin Cameron is the inaugural Academic Director of the Centre for Social Accountability (CFSA) beginning a three-year term on July 1, 2021. The Centre is the only one of its kind in Canada with a core mandate to improve the health of Northern Ontarians, reaching beyond NOSM’s founding commitment to be socially accountable in education, research programs and in advocacy for health equity.

NOSM University