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NOSM receives Charles Boelen International Social Accountability Award

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) was presented with the Charles Boelen International Social Accountability Award by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) during a ceremony on April 14 at the Conference on Canadian Medical Education at the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Named after Dr. Charles Boelen, a world leader in social accountability in medical education, the award aims to celebrate people or organizations whose professional accomplishments are reflective of the principles of social accountability, including a focused response to the priority health concerns of citizens and society in education, research and service delivery missions.

“AFMC is pleased to award NOSM with the AFMC Charles Boelen International Social Accountability Award,” says Dr. Geneviève Moineau, President and CEO of AFMC. “NOSM has developed an innovative model of distributed, community-engaged medical education for which they should be recognized.”

NOSM is the first medical school in Canada established with an explicit social accountability mandate. The School is committed to addressing the health needs of all Northern Ontarians and improving access to quality care through education and research. Since 2009, there have been 595 graduates of NOSM’s MD program. The majority of NOSM medical students come from the North and many choose to stay in the North upon completion of their studies.

More than 90 communities participate in the education of NOSM students. Throughout the School’s four-year MD program, medical students have the unique opportunity to live and learn in these communities. All medical students complete a four-week placement in an Indigenous community in their first year, and two four-week placements in rural and remote communities in their second year. NOSM was also the first medical school in the world at which all medical students complete a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC), the Comprehensive Community Clerkship—an eight-month third-year placement during which the students live and learn in one of 15 mid-sized communities in the region.

As part of its social accountability mandate, NOSM has the responsibility to engage partners at all levels across Northern Ontario, including those in Indigenous, Francophone, and rural and remote communities. Since 2003, the School has sought guidance from these communities, bringing together members from treaty organizations, Elders, physicians, community leaders, nurses and other health-care professionals from across the North to learn from their invaluable experience and expertise. The key elements of the School’s community-engaged learning model are a direct result of their input.

The work of NOSM researchers also plays a key role in fulfilling the School’s social accountability mandate. For years, Canadian health research took place primarily in large cities, leaving unanswered questions about health issues affecting Northern Ontarians, as well as issues specific to Indigenous and Francophone communities in the region. Today, there are many NOSM faculty members—medical anthropologists, sociologists and biologists, immunologists, physicians, other clinicians and more—who conduct leading-edge health research in the lab, in communities, in hospitals, in health clinics and in administrative offices across Northern Ontario.

“When NOSM was founded, we didn’t take an off-the-shelf model and try to transpose it,” said Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM Dean and CEO, who accepted the award on behalf of the School. “We started in the Northern Ontario context and developed our own model of medical education for Northern Ontario, and it’s working, thanks to the hundreds of health professionals who serve as clinical faculty members for students, and the people of Northern Ontario, who have welcomed our learners into their communities and into their homes.”

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The Northern Ontario School of Medicine is committed to the education of high-quality physicians and health professionals, and to international recognition as a leader in distributed, learning-centred, community-engaged education and research.
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NOSM Hosts International Workshop on Physician Recruitment and Retention

Focus on Establishing a Stable Health-Care Workforce in Rural and Remote Communities

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) today hosted the Remote Rural Workforce Stability Forum, an international, multi-site forum on physician recruitment and retention. The forum focused on recruitment and retention of the health workforce in rural and remote communities and the role of medical schools, health service organizations, communities and government in creating workforce stability.

NOSM was established as a government strategy to address the health needs of Northern Ontarians, improve access to quality care and contribute to the economic development of the region. Physician recruitment and retention has long been one of the most pressing concerns in the North.

“The Northern Ontario School of Medicine was founded on the idea that if you train physicians in the North, they will stay in the North. While that strategy is making a difference—94 per cent of graduates who have completed both their MD and residency programs are practising in Northern Ontario—there are still many small communities struggling to maintain medical services,” said Dr. Roger Strasser, Dean and CEO at NOSM. “This forum was a way to bring together key stakeholders and partners from across the world to understand how we can better do what is needed to achieve workforce stability for rural Northern communities.”

The Making It Work Framework for Remote Rural Workforce Stability, is the result of a seven-year international partnership between institutions in Sweden, Scotland, Norway, Iceland and Canada, and provides a set of key areas of activity—including community engagement, supporting families, and training future professionals—that, when implemented as a holistic, integrated set of interventions, can create the conditions necessary to establish a stable and appropriately skilled health-care workforce in rural and remote communities.

Attendees learned about the Making it Work Framework and case studies carried out in each of the participating countries and also participated in a Knowledge Transfer in Action session, integrating key learnings from international rural health human resources work to the Northern Ontario Physician Resources Action Plan developed over the past year as a result of Summit North—a symposium  in January 2018 that brought together policymakers, educators, administrators, community members and clinicians from across Northern Ontario to address the issue of health workforce recruitment and retention in rural and remote communities.

The Action Plan builds on existing recruitment and retention strategies across the region. At NOSM, several measures are in place to support physician recruitment and retention: encouraging high school students from rural and remote communities to see a career in health care as an opportunity that’s available to them; an admissions process that favours applicants from Northern Ontario and reflects the population distribution of the region; a distinctive Distributed Community Engaged Learning model that places students in communities so they focus on responding to the health needs of the population; involving rural generalist faculty members as principal clinical teachers and role models; and having a rural and remote First Nations stream in our family medicine residency program.

This model is a proven success in some Northern Ontario communities. A study recently published in Canadian Family Physician found that NOSM students and graduates had a positive view of rural generalism, and their experience and exposure to rural community practice was highly influential in determining their career directions. A 2016 study examining eight communities that were successful in recruiting family doctors to their communities, found that five of those communities which had previously struggled with chronic doctor shortages had moved to a more stable situation. All participants in the study agreed that NOSM played a prominent role in physician recruitment to underserved communities in Northern Ontario.

Research has also shown that NOSM, including its education and research programs, is having a positive economic impact on Northern Ontario communities. In 2017, NOSM had an estimated economic impact of $122-$134 million in Northern Ontario, and overall spending was estimated to support 729-802 full-time equivalent jobs in the region.

“By integrating the results of the Making It Work Recruit and Retain partnership into the Northern Physician Resources Action Plan, we are creating a path forward toward self-sufficiency in Northern Ontario,” said Dr. Strasser. “There will always be gaps that need to be filled, and if we work in partnership with communities, we will be able to fill them with skilled, competent rural generalists who have connections to the North.”

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The Northern Ontario School of Medicine is committed to the education of high-quality physicians and health professionals, and to international recognition as a leader in distributed, learning-centred, community-engaged education and research.

 

For further information, please contact:

Turning over a new leaf

Research at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine plays an integral role in the School’s mandate to be socially accountable to the population we serve. In 2013, the School created the role of Assistant Dean, Research, with the goal of supporting Dr. Penny Moody Corbett, Associate Dean of Research, and the School’s senior leadership in their efforts to address strategic plan priorities, as well as promote research in the North.

This summer, Dr. TC Tai took over the role of Assistant Dean, Research from Dr. David MacLean. We’d like to thank Dr. MacLean for his contributions to research at NOSM, and welcome Dr. Tai to his new leadership role.

 

Dr. David MacLean

 

Dr. David MacLean, a Professor of Physiology at NOSM, was the School’s inaugural Assistant Dean, Research. Throughout his five-year tenure he implemented a number of initiatives to raise the profile of research at NOSM, including the Physicians’ Services Incorporated (PSI) Visiting Clinical Scholar program, which brings experienced clinician researchers to NOSM to offer educational opportunities to physicians interested in research, and help them develop their research skills or projects.

He also oversaw the creation and each edition of The Scope, helping to provide our communities with a better understanding of research being done at NOSM. In addition, he spearheaded the development of NOSM’s first graduate program, a Master of Medical Studies.

“It was a pleasure to be able to support the faculty and students in their research efforts, and to see the contributions they have made to improving the health of people in Northern Ontario,” he says.

 

Dr. TC Tai

 

Dr. TC Tai, a Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at NOSM, took over as Assistant Dean, Research in July of this year.

He says he hopes he can continue to promote NOSM as a world-class research institute with a unique and valuable perspective.

“I want people in communities across Northern Ontario, as well as people across the country and around the world, to realize what researchers at NOSM are doing, what they have the potential to do, and what that means for the health of people in our region and beyond,” he says.