The making of a medical school
Starting a new medical school doesn't just happen. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) became a reality as a result of the commitment, determination, and hard work of many individuals and organizations over many years. On the heels of celebrating NOSM's milestone achievements of full accreditation and first graduations, it is time to tell the story of the school's beginning. A peer reviewed McGill Queen's University Press publication, The Making of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, does just that. Written by 12 contributing authors, this highly readable collection provides a diversity of viewpoints about the challenges and rewards faced by those who insisted on creating a school for the North, by the North and in the North.
NOSM is not an ordinary medical school. In fact, most things about NOSM are atypical and extraordinary. The new medical school came about because of the need to address the chronic doctor shortages in Northern Ontario. Northern mayors, physicians, university administrators, academics, community leaders and political representatives lobbied the provincial government to fund a custom-made medical school. This would be a medical school that responds to the particular health challenges of the region. The model of medical education required to fulfill this vision would call for new thinking and a pioneering approach.
The timing of the social, political and academic forces underway in Northern Ontario that led to the government decision to establish NOSM coincided with other developments occurring in medical education around the world. The concepts of community-based learning (learning in context) and social accountability in medical education gained momentum in the latter part of the 20th century.
Developments in both information and medical technology occurred. These innovations were woven into a distinctive model of distributed medical education and health research designed to contribute to improving the health of the people and communities of the North.
NOSM's governance and organizational structure, admissions process and curriculum have been specifically created to address the particular health demands of smaller, rural and diverse populations.
There are many parts to NOSM's story. The development of NOSM owes much to the strong history of physician training in Northern Ontario provided by the Northwestern Ontario Medical Program (NOMP) and the Northeastern Ontario Medical Education Corporation (NOMEC).
These programs, attached to the medical schools at McMaster University and the University of Ottawa, respectively, provided medical residents with clinical learning opportunities to work alongside practicing physicians in Northern communities.
The success of NOSM's community-based model is contingent on the participation of physicians and health-care providers, many of whom participated in the NOMP and NOMEC models, and continue to provide a high standard of clinical training to NOSM learners. In The Making of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Dr. John Mulloy, a family physician and contributing author, provides insight into how distributed family medicine programs across Northern Ontario developed a broad base of physician-teachers who would provide the foundation for NOSM's clinical placements. Today, NOSM's unique model includes the participation of over 70 learning and research sites across Northern Ontario. In communities across the region, NOSM medical students, residents, dietetic interns and other health science students are living and learning in context as part of the school's distinctive curricula.
The Making of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine tells the story of Canada's first new medical school of the 21st century. This is a story in which the people and communities in Northern Ontario are an integral part. It is also a story of a made-in-Northern Ontario solution, which is garnering international recognition for its pioneering approach to addressing rural health needs. Health organizations and medical educators around the world are looking at NOSM as an effective solution to increase the number of highly qualified practitioners in under-serviced areas. Key features of NOSM-community engagement, a diversity of learning experience, in-context clinical training opportunities and a social accountability mandate-are now leading developments in medical education internationally.
In November, at book launches in Sudbury and Thunder Bay, and in December in Toronto, co-editor Dr. Geoffrey Tesson and I were very fortunate to publicly announce The Making of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. It is extremely rewarding to celebrate the collective achievement of the book and NOSM with so many who have contributed to the school's beginning.
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English copies of The Making of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine are available at Chapters, Chapters Online, directly from McGill Queen's University Press, and through NOSM's website. A French version of the book will be available in early 2010. Ten percent of all book sales will be donated to NOSM's Student Bursary Fund.
