Developing Partnerships for Distributed Community-Engaged Medical Education in Northern Ontario, Canada

Abstract

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) was established as a not-for-profit medical education corporation in November 2002 with a social accountability mandate to provide "undergraduate and post graduate medical education programs that are innovative and responsive to the individual needs of students and to the healthcare needs of the people in Northern Ontario."[1] NOSM is not only the first new medical school in Canada in 30 years; it is also the first medical school established in, for and about the Northern Ontario region; and the first Canadian dual university medical school. In practice, these "firsts" constitute community-engaged medical education programs distributed in 70 communities across Northern Ontario, made possible by partnerships with universities, advisory groups, community organizations, hospitals and clinics. It is through these partnerships that NOSM works to fully achieve its social accountability mandate with a diverse, multilingual population, dispersed over a wide geographic area. Northern Ontario is a mostly rural, densely forested area of 820,000 square kilometers (approximately the size of France and Germany combined) with a population of just over 800,000, including First Nations (Aboriginal), Francophone and Anglophone groups. In general, the largest First Nation populations are located on reserves in the Northwest, while Francophone populations are generally concentrated in the Northeast. In April 2007, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care designated 37 Northern Ontario communities (including some larger communities such as North Bay and Thunder Bay) as medically "underserviced" with a total shortage of 132 family physicians.[2] In addition, 14 Northern Ontario communities were designated as underserviced in specialists with a total shortage of 129.[3].