The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) held its Annual Members and Board of Directors meetings on Wednesday. These meetings were video-linked between the School’s West Campus at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and its East Campus at Laurentian University in Sudbury, with other Directors participating via teleconference.

At the Annual Members Meeting, which involves one representative each of Laurentian University and Lakehead University, the audited financial statements for the year ending April 30, 2009 were approved, and members of the Board of Directors for 2009 – 2010 were appointed. NOSM M.D. student Paul Miron (nominated by the Northern Ontario School of Medicine Student Society) and recent NOSM M.D. graduate Dr. Adam Moir (nominated by the Postgraduate Residency Trainees) were inducted into the Board.

The Directors received reports from Board Committees, including the Finance and Audit, Quality Monitoring, Governance, Board Executive, Advancement, and Nominating Committees.

The Directors also received reports from the School’s Academic Council, Research Associate Dean, Strategic Planning Committee, Archives Reference Group, Aboriginal Reference Group, and Francophone Reference Group.

The next meeting of the Board of Directors will be held on December 3 and 4, 2009 in Thunder Bay.

On Friday, August 21, 2009, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) celebrated the graduation of the second class of the Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program (NODIP). A videoconferenced graduation celebration linked the four principal community sites – Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, and Thunder Bay.

Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean, congratulated the interns at the graduation earlier today. “The Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program’s graduation marks the end of an exciting year of milestones at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. The success of the program is spectacular. I would like to congratulate the interns on their outstanding achievements, and wish them success as they begin their careers as dietitians,” said Dr. Strasser. “I would like to thank Denise Raftis, Program Manager for the Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program for her steadfast commitment, as well as the preceptors, partners, and communities that have supported the program for their generosity and dedication.”

With placements across Northern Ontario in rural, Aboriginal, and Francophone communities, and the four principal community sites, ten dietetic interns worked with, and learned from, preceptors in hospitals, public health units, long-term care facilities, and clinics. The following communities welcomed NOSM’s dietetic interns this year: Kenora, Sioux Lookout, Dryden, Fort Frances, Atikokan, Marathon, Sturgeon Falls, Garden Village, North Bay, Penetanguishine, and Little Current. Graduates now have an appreciation for the unique health-care needs of Northern Ontario, as well as the cultural diversity of the people who call it home. Ninety percent of this year’s graduating class will begin working in Northern Ontario communities.

The Northern Ontario Dietetic Internship Program offers diverse and distributed experiences in the provision of nutrition care across the health-care continuum. The next class of dietetic interns are scheduled to begin their training on September 14, 2009, with the class size increasing from ten to twelve. As with all of the School’s educational programs, NODIP was established with a social accountability mandate, of working towards improving the health of people and communities in Northern Ontario.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) is pleased to announce that 20 residents whose recent completion of training from NOSM’s Family Medicine Residents of the Canadian Shield (FM RoCS) program marked a first for the School, have achieved outstanding scores on their Medical Council of Canada (MCC) examinations. In fact, the scores received by this group of residents surpass those achieved by their peers across the country, and include demonstrated excellence in problem solving, patient interaction, and data acquisition.

The qualifying clinical examinations administered by the MCC are a requirement of physician certification.

Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean, describes the outcome as an outstanding achievement which is a cause for great celebration. “This successful outcome demonstrates once again the dedication of our learners and the commitment of our physician faculty in providing first-rate clinical training. We are very proud of our residents and appreciative of NOSM’s clinical physician teachers for their ongoing support,” he said.

Dr. Maureen Topps, NOSM’s Associate Dean of Postgraduate Education, is equally delighted by the first NOSM family medicine MCC examination results, and attributes them to both the high calibre of residents in the program and the program’s strong clinical focus. “We are extremely pleased by the performance of our outstanding residents. Our hands-on family medicine program is supported by health-care professionals across communities where our residents receive practical training. Our residents receive wide exposure to clinical teachers, medical procedures and environments which allows them to develop strong clinical skills in the culturally diverse settings of Northern Ontario.”

NOSM’s family medicine program is the newest in Canada. This year marks the first completion of residents from the program – now fully certified physicians with a particular understanding of Northern health challenges who are fully prepared for medical practice or additional training. From this moment on, a growing number of Northern-trained family physicians will complete the program each year.

With a focus on community-based training, residents live and learn in one of five primary residency sites as well as a growing number of communities distributed throughout the region. The unique features of NOSM’s family medicine program provide for residency training that is unmatched in variety of clinical exposure and exceptional lifestyle opportunity.