It is with great excitement that the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) announces the appointment of Monique Rocheleau as Chair of the Francophone Reference Group (FRG). Rocheleau, Assistant Executive Director for the Réseau du mieux-être francophone du Nord de l’Ontario—the Francophone planning entity for health-care services in Northern Ontario—has been a member of NOSM’s Francophone Reference Group since 2014.

The Francophone Reference Group serves as a resource for the medical school in the fulfilment of its social accountability mandate as it relates to Francophone health education and research. Reporting to the Dean, the FRG provides advice relating to the School’s initiatives, including research, administration, and academic issues in the promotion of excellence in higher learning and accommodation of Francophone culture.

“Monique Rocheleau has an extensive professional and personal background, relating to both the Francophone communities and health-care services,” says Danielle Barbeau-Rodrigue, NOSM’s Director of Francophone Affairs. She is a proud citizen of Northern Ontario and a supporter of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine since its inception. Mrs. Rocheleau has already begun to lead the Francophone Reference Group, and we look forward to achieving the objectives set by our members and our community.”

“It is a pleasure for me to be involved with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and the Francophone Reference Group,” says Monique Rocheleau, Chair of NOSM’s Francophone Reference Group. “The work that is being done by the group and the Francophone Affairs Unit is vital for the Northern communities and ensures a better understanding of our realities by NOSM’s learners, faculty, and staff. I also want to recognize the accomplishments and work done by my predecessor, without whom the elaboration of our strategic plan would not have been possible.”

Rocheleau succeeds Jacqueline Gauthier, who was Chair of the Francophone Reference Group from 2010 to 2017 and led the strategic planning process. The FRG’s 2017-2020 strategic plan, recently adopted and presented at the FRG’s last meeting, aims to achieve four objectives:

• Enrich NOSM’s academic programs to promote high quality health care in French for minority Francophone communities in Northern Ontario, including rural and remote communities;
• Strengthen NOSM’s capacity to conduct unparalleled research to study the health-care needs of Francophones living in Northern Ontario;
• Establish within NOSM, a culture and learning environment which contributes to the development and improvement of French-speaking faculty, staff and students; and,
• Strategically mobilize the health-care community, partners and other collaborators to strengthen their relationship with the Francophone community and increase the French-language resources available to its members.

The FRG is composed of the following members: Monique Rocheleau (Chair – Sudbury), Claudette Gleeson (Vice-Chair – Thunder Bay), Dr. Paul Miron (Timmins), France Dallaire (Kapuskasing), Michel Mayer (Noëlville), Dr. Richard Claveau (Hearst), Pierre Plamondon (Sudbury), Shyanne Fournier (Thunder Bay), Dr. Nicole Ranger (Hearst), Sylvie Chouinard (Sudbury), Élodie Grunerud (Thunder Bay), Nicole Riva (Thunder Bay), Dr. David Lesbarrères, (Sudbury), Line Michaud (Sudbury), Michelle Thibeault (Sudbury), Dr. Meghan Cusack (Sudbury), et Dr. Frédéric Sarrazin (Thunder Bay).

NOSM’s newest class of medical students includes 14 Francophone students, which constitutes 22 percent of the overall students admitted in September 2017.

The next Francophone Reference Group meeting is scheduled for November 2017.

Last month in Sault Ste. Marie, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) celebrated the volunteers of the Bring a Doctor Home Hockey Tournament at an event called Be Awesome with NOSM. At this event, the tournament volunteers presented NOSM with a cheque for $26,000 to support student bursaries for medical students who consider Sault Ste. Marie home.

Each year, volunteer employees, retirees, and friends lace up their skates to participate in the charity Bring a Doctor Home hockey tournament that raises donations for medical students at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine who hail from Sault Ste. Marie. In the last twelve years, the tournament raised more than $350,000 for student bursaries.

“The volunteers of the Bring a Doctor Home Hockey Tournament provide a shining example of how, when people come together, we can truly inspire positive change in our communities,” says Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean. “We are grateful for Sault Ste. Marie’s generous and long-standing support of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and extremely pleased to see many NOSM-trained graduates from the Sault Ste. Marie returning home to practice upon completion of their training.”

“For many, this tournament is about a lot more than hockey,” says Chris Lepore, Tournament Executive Director. “The Bring a Doctor Home Hockey Tournament is one way that we as a community can invest in the future health of our citizens. We are proud to partner with NOSM to support home-grown health professionals who share a passion for this community with us.”

Dr. James Goertzen, Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) Assistant Dean, Continuing Education and Professional Development, and Professor, and Dr. Frances Kilbertus, NOSM Associate Professor, are among six distinguished educators to receive a 2017 AMS Phoenix Fellowship award.

The Fellowship from AMS Healthcare (Associated Medical Services) is awarded each year and specifically targets individuals with strong leadership abilities who are committed to nurturing and sustaining the learning and practice of compassionate care. The intent of the Fellowship is to provide support (the equivalent of $50,000) to individuals to allow them to devote time to engage in leadership activities, building capacity in their home institution and across Ontario.

Based in Thunder Bay, Goertzen’s project will explore the relationship between compassionate leadership and the practice of compassionate patient care and compassionate health-care education.

“Improving the health of Northern Ontario at individual and system levels will require committed and well trained health-care leaders who see their clinical, educational, and leadership work through a compassionate lens,” Goertzen says. “The overall goal of my Fellowship is to further develop and sustain the compassionate physician leadership required to support learning and practice of compassionate care in Northern Ontario.”

Dr. Frances Kilbertus, who works at the Manitoulin Central Family Health Team and Manitoulin Health Centre in Mindemoya, is focusing her Fellowship on projects that explore how the community, the workplace, health professionals and learners are interwoven in a process of learning and practising palliative care in the culturally diverse rural community on Manitoulin Island.

“The focus for the first year of the fellowship will be exploring community involvement, creating opportunities for engagement and dialogue around death and dying, and developing learning tools for palliative care that are inclusive of an Indigenous perspective,” Kilbertus says. “The second year will focus on the rural clinical workplace: how learners and practitioners understand and appreciate palliative care and how compassionate learning environments are created and sustained.”

“The Northern Ontario School of Medicine was founded on a strong social accountability mandate,” says Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean and CEO. “These fellowships, which advance compassionate care within the health-care community and sustain compassion in the environments in which health professionals learn and work, fit perfectly with the School’s distributed, community-engaged, learning-centered model of education and research.”