Providing NOSM Learners with Enriched Clinical Experiences

The Northern Teaching Hospitals Council (NTHC) is pleased to announce a “Call for Nominations.” Comprised of Northern Ontario hospitals and health services that have an affiliation with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), the NTHC is now inviting nominees for one representative from each of the following:

– Northeastern Integrated Community Experience (ICE) Community
– Northwestern Integrated Community Experience (ICE) Community
– Northeastern Comprehensive Community Clerkship (CCC) Community
– Northwestern Comprehensive Community Clerkship (CCC) Community

The Council works collaboratively to ensure NOSM medical students, residents, and other health professional learners receive enriched clinical learning experiences, provide support for teaching faculty, and ensure high quality health services for communities in Northern Ontario.

The Council provides a mechanism for hospitals and health services in Northern Ontario to share information and teaching expertise and facilitate effective communication between the hospitals and the School. Interacting with NOSM, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (including the Health Human Resources Strategy Division within the Ministry), and the Northeast and Northwest Local Health Integration Networks, the Council works as a team to support student learning.

NOSM delivers a distinctive distributed, community-engaged, and socially accountable medical and health professional education model which brings together over 70 communities. The Integrated Community Experience provides first-year medical students with direct exposure to various Aboriginal communities in Northern Ontario and second-year students with clinical experiences in remote and rural communities. By living and learning in a community for a four-week period, students are exposed to the realities of life and health care delivery in these various communities.

In a unique program designed by NOSM, the School’s third-year medical students complete a Comprehensive Community Clerkship in a mid-sized Northern Ontario community. Students learn in hospitals, health centres, and family practices with the support of a clinical faculty member during an eight-month placement where they benefit from immersion in community-based environments that provide them with challenges in the demands of patient-centred care under the guidance of a practicing physician.

“The Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s values the important role that the Northern Teaching Hospitals Council plays in the quality of medical education that learners receive while learning in communities across the North,” said Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean. “Partnerships such as these are crucial to the success of our community engaged model of medical education and the School’s goal of educating high-quality physicians and health professionals with the skills and knowledge to practice in Northern Ontario and beyond.”

Mr. Roger Walker, NTHC Chair and President and CEO of the Timmins and District Hospital, is pleased to be supporting NOSM’s vision of Innovative education and research for a healthier North. “It is an exciting time to be a part of the Northern Teaching Hospitals Council. Hospitals and other health-care services are well positioned and have the resources available to provide opportunities to medical students and other health professional learners. These organizations will benefit from their maturing involvement in the teaching of NOSM learners by potentially attracting physicians and health professionals back to their communities when they set up practice.”

Further information and nomination details are available at www.nosm.ca.

Scientists from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand Join Forces

An Associate Professor at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) is partnering in a unique new research approach specifically designed for First Nations pregnant women. The study will commence this spring in several communities across Ontario and Manitoba with the goal of reducing the marked early childhood caries (tooth decay) disparities that exist between First Nations and non-First Nations children in Canada.

The Canadian arm of this project is funded at almost $1.2 million dollars by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). It will involve both clinical components, including treatment and fluoride applications, as well as behavioural modification including anticipatory guidance and motivational interviewing. Results will be compared with partner initiatives lead by Australian and New Zealand teams.

The project is highly participatory and involves close collaboration between Aboriginal communities and university-based researchers. Dr. Pam Williamson, Executive Director of the Noojmowin Teg Health Centre and a member of the First Nations community herself, explains. “In 2004, Noojmowin Teg Health Centre completed research on the oral health of children within our catchment area on Manitoulin Island. We found that dental caries among First Nations children was very high. This was one reason for accepting the invitation to partner in this project. We expect that the participation of women and their children in our area will help break the cycle of childhood dental decay and maybe even have a positive impact on the entire family.”

Dr. Marion Maar, an Associate Professor at NOSM and co-investigator on this international project, has collaborated with First Nations in Northern Ontario on health research for over a dozen years, including the Noojmowin Teg dental project on Manitoulin. “Dental disease can cause a lot of suffering for children, it impacts on children’s ability to eat, play, and sleep. But pain is only one of the issues. It can also be associated with ear infections, obesity and low self-esteem. Treatment in children often requires expensive treatment under a general anesthetic. It is very exciting to expand my involvement in Aboriginal child health to include Northern Ontario First Nations along with Indigenous people worldwide to address an issue that impacts on the well-being of so many children,” said Maar.

Principal investigator, Dr. Herenia Lawrence, from the University of Toronto, says, “We hope that by working in partnership with Aboriginal communities here in Canada we can create an intervention that will reduce the dental treatment needs of young children and motivate mothers to subscribe to better preventative oral health practices. Our long-term goal is to create a culturally appropriate intervention that reduces dental disease burden and health inequalities among pre-school Indigenous children in the participating countries and that can be readily applied to other populations with high levels of early childhood caries.”

Four other Canadian Universities will join NOSM for this investigation including the University of Toronto, the University of Manitoba, the University College of the North, and the University of Waterloo. The five-year study is called Reducing Disease Burden and Health Inequalities Arising From Chronic Dental Disease Among Indigenous Children: An Early Childhood Caries Intervention.

Second Time NOSM’s Entire Graduating Class Matches to Residency Programs on First Attempt

Earlier this week, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) received notice that all undergraduate medical students in this year’s graduating class successfully matched to Canadian residency programs on their first attempt. This is the second time in over ten years that NOSM is the only Canadian medical school to have all students matched in the first round of matches of the Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS).

Each student, in their final year at a Canadian medical school, must apply for residency training to become a fully-trained physician. Postgraduate residency programs are offered at all Canadian medical schools in various disciplines (for example, family medicine, pediatrics, orthopedics, surgery, anesthesia, etcetera) ranging in duration from two to five years, or more. Students apply to the medical school and discipline of their choice, and are then granted interviews after which both the student and the program they have applied to rank each other for preference through CaRMS. CaRMS then matches students, based on rankings, to postgraduate residency programs across Canada.

Dr. Lisa Graves, NOSM’s Associate Dean of Undergraduate Medical Education believes the results of this year’s CaRMS match demonstrate, yet again, how highly our students are regarded across the country. “The successful first match of our students for the second time provides testament to the training and preparation they receive through the model of distributed, learning-centred, community-engaged medical education established at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. I congratulate the students on their achievement and wish them well as the move on to the next stage of becoming fully-trained physicians. ”

“I extend my hearty congratulations to each student in the graduating class of 2011 who have worked diligently to gain the knowledge, skills, and experience to become high-quality physicians prepared for practice in Northern Ontario, and beyond,” said Dr. Strasser, Dean of NOSM. “It is important that we also applaud the tireless efforts of our physicians, faculty, and staff at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine who have worked so hard to contribute to this success. With their support, we are working towards fulfilling the School’s vision – Innovative Education and Research for a Healthier North.”

Over 60% of this year’s graduating class has been matched to Family Medicine programs. Many of NOSM’s graduates will continue their education in Northern Ontario, to undertake their residency training in various NOSM postgraduate training programs. The remainder will represent NOSM across the country in residency programs at other medical schools, in some cases to gain specialized training not available in Northern Ontario. Specialties to which students matched include: plastic surgery, pediatrics, dermatology, anesthesia, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, emergency medicine, radiation oncology, orthopedics, psychiatry, and pathology.