The Northern Ontario Medical School (NOMS), on schedule to open in 2004, is breaking the mould.
Figure. Eighty percent of the province, 10% of the population Photo by: Canapress
Not only will it be associated with 2 universities — Laurentian in Sudbury and Lakehead in Thunder Bay — it will be an “institution without walls.” NOMS' 2 campuses will rely on video conferencing and the Internet, not bricks and mortar, as they attempt to develop a community-based program centred on the realities of rural and remote practice. (NOMS will be the only medical school in an area containing 80% of Ontario's land mass but only 10% of its population.) The undergraduate program will involve small groups of students studying in “learning sites” in northern communities, with each site supported by seamless video conferencing, telehealth and other communication links.
The school's founding dean, Dr. Roger Strasser (CMAJ 2002;166[12]: 1583), said much of the necessary technologic infrastructure is already in place, and NOMS hopes to build on 2 existing existing family medicine residency programs. “What I've found is that although there is no medical school in the North, quite a lot of the building blocks are already there.”
The immediate challenge is to find staff members, and Strasser is encouraged by a recent competition for 2 campus deanship positions — at Lakehead and Laurentian — which attracted more than 30 applicants. Dr. Louis Francescutti, an emergency medicine and injury control specialist from the University of Alberta, was named campus dean for NOMS–West at Lakehead University. Dr. Tim Allen, a professor and emergency medicine specialist from Laval University, will serve as dean at NOMS–East at Laurentian University, with special responsibility for the school's francophone operations.
The new school is also asking residents of the north what their doctors of tomorrow should know. More than 200 people from all walks of life — including physicians, business owners, Aboriginal people and the public — attended a curriculum development workshop in January. Strasser says this community involvement is a vital step in the development of a “made-in-Northern Ontario” curriculum. “To our knowledge, no medical school anywhere has ever consulted with the community it serves in quite this way.”
Strasser says the school has received an overwhelmingly positive response. “I'm hearing that there are naysayers around, but I think they are well and truly being drowned out by those who are very positive about this.” — CMAJ