Dr. James Rourke
One-quarter of Canada's 30 million people live in rural areas. Very few specialists (3%) practise in rural Canada and there is a shortage of 1,652 rural family doctors. A number of programs are being implemented to educate, recruit and retain more physicians for rural and northern practice, including constructing a new Northern Ontario Rural Medical School (NORMS). NORMS will be a partnership between Laurentian University and Lakehead University (Sudbury and Thunder Bay respectively – 1,000 km. apart) and will have a network of learning sites throughout Northern Ontario (almost 1 million sq. km. in Northern Ontario). The curriculum will be patient-centred, clinical problem-based and systems-organized with a significant health determinant focus and aboriginal health content and context. Small group learning will be utilized in an advanced information technology supported distributed learning network. NORMS will graduate highly qualified physicians with state-of-the-art medical education, with exceptional knowledge, skills and interest in aboriginal, rural, northern and underserviced health care. NORMS is being developed to have a significant impact on the education, recruitment and retention of physicians in rural and northern Ontario and Canada.