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This past week's gathering of Aborginal Community Coordinators at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) was another step in the preparation for first year medical students who will be moving to their four week Aboriginal community placements at the end of April. The meetings took place in Thunder Bay and Sudbury (click here to see the NOSM press release about this gathering).

From Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal news online, Sunday, Feb 19, 2006 - http://66.244.236.251/article_4232.php

Med students in for remote experiences
By JONATHAN WILSON

The future doctors of Northern Ontario could be in for a major culture shock this spring.

Northern Ontario School of Medicine students will be leaving the relative comforts of Thunder Bay and Sudbury for remote First Nations in mid-April for a month-long immersion program. 

“For most of these students, it will probably be their first time in an aboriginal or First Nation or Metis setting,” Orpah McKenzie, NOSM’s director of aboriginal affairs, said Thursday.

“It’s a variety of experiences, and it’s all going to happen in four weeks.”

The 56 first-year medical students will be sent in pairs to 28 communities from Moose Factory to Muskrat Dam to Sucker Creek.

Besides their clinical training, they’ll each be equipped with laptop computers and Internet access to continue their regular classroom studies for 12 hours each week.

Another 12 hours will be dedicated to participating in cultural activities unique to the remote North.

“Our community, they do a lot of fishing and hunting,” said Don Sofea, director of health and social services for Nibinamik, also known as Summer Beaver. “You would hunt moose and possibly geese.

“I think it’s going to be a fabulous four weeks for them, and a fabulous four weeks for us.”

The First Nations placement program was one of the primary components envisioned when the medical school was being developed, to help introduce future physicians to the realities of Northern medicine.

“It’s a major reason why this school exists,” said Joel Lanphear, NOSM’s associate dean of undergraduate medical education for the Lakehead University campus.

“The real value is immersion in the culture, as part of our social accountability mandate.”

The two students in Nibinamik will likely reside at Amik Lodge, a sort of hotel-overnight unit for resource people who come into the community, or in the teacherage next to the community’s school.

“In some places, they’ll be in the chief’s home,” Lanphear said.

Nibinamik’s population is mostly Ojibwa-speaking, and Sofea said the med students will be encouraged to explore the area and mingle with residents and elders.

They’ll also be challenged to quickly figure out what their patients are trying to tell them about their conditions.

“They’re going to have to really learn about us,” Sofea said.

Translators will be available, along with each community’s regular nursing staff, nurse practitioners and travelling physicians.

McKenzie said the students may also learn from traditional healers about alternative health care, and partake in traditional ceremonies and feasts.

Health co-ordinators from the 28 communities toured the med school facilities in Thunder Bay and Sudbury this week, the latest step in a two-year process to develop the student placement program.

The group which toured LU also met with some of the students who will be placed in their communities from mid-April until mid-May.

“I think they’re going to have a very enjoyable experience, they’re going to get an eye-opener from this,” said Dean Wilson, office manager of the Gizhewaadiziwin health access centre near Fort Frances which co-ordinates health care in several communities from Lac La Croix to Big Grassy First Nation.

The two students placed at Gizhewaadiziwin will travel to all its communities during their four-week placement and learn about the unique challenges of rural transportation.

“People in Lac Le Croix have to drive 2 1/2 hours one way just to see a doctor,” Wilson said.

“The students are going to see what the difficulty is of getting around in Northwestern Ontario, how difficult it is for these people to access some of these services and what they have to go through.”

McKenzie said the First Nations officials themselves are also learning about what the med school students need to advance their education.

The overall goal is to provide an enriching experience, and convince at least some of the students to return to the First Nations later in their lives.

“Hopefully, exposing students at an early stage in their career to Northern communities, rural communities . . . in the end they will stay and practice,” McKenzie said.

“If we get five or six new doctors in the next few years,” added Wilson, “for Northwestern Ontario, that’s very important.
“We’ve got four weeks to sell them.”

The First Nations placements will continue throughout the four-year program, Lanphear said, adding the cultural component is also a part of the students’ everyday learning.