VIEW - Fall 2008 - page 16

universities 200 kilometres apart faces
challenges, Herbert says mutual trust and
respect is making it work.
The 2012 Schulich medical class is made
up of 147 students: 24 at UWindsor and 123
at The University of Western Ontario.
The four-year undergraduate medical
program provides a “kind of generalist
training,” says Scott. Students may then
choose to complete specialty training
through postgraduate residency programs in
areas such as obstetrics, family medicine or
psychiatry.
The Windsor-based students will benefit
from high-tech videoconferencing as well
as from such significant resources as the
Faculty of Nursing’s $1-million Simulation
Lab. It simulates real-life experience using
mannequins and computer programs that
generate various health problems and
conditions, from heart failure to pregnancy
and birth.
UWindsor-based med students are “not
guinea pigs” in this relationship, Herbert
adds, but “fellow explorers” and “co-
inventors” in the medical program.
The initiative builds on the success of
its predecessor, SWOMEN, a partnership of
rural and regional communities and hospitals
that started in 2002. It provides clinical
training for undergraduate and postgraduate
medical trainees from The University of
Western Ontario in Windsor and 40 other
communities in Southwestern Ontario.
“The mandate of the school has already
been realized,” says local pediatrician Dr.
Mark Awuku. “There are physicians who
went through the (SWOMEN) Windsor
program and are now practising in Windsor.
It is going to get much better with the
commencement of the four-year program.”
SWOMEN also recruited 230 of the 400
area physicians to teach third-year students
through the clinical clerkship program – a
“remarkable achievement,” Cheung says.
He adds that all Windsor SWOMEN grads
have been accepted to their program of
their first choice in postgraduate training for
each of the past five years, compared to a
60 percent-to-70 percent average across all
medical schools.
THE GREENING OF A
MEDICAL SCHOOL
UWindsor is breaking ground
in the design of its new medical
school building. In keeping with the
University’s environmental sensitivity,
it includes various elements designed
to qualify it for Leadership in Energy
& Environmental Design (LEED)
certification. Sustainable elements of
the new school include Essex County’s
first-ever living wall in the atrium, a bio-
filtration system in which contaminants
are absorbed into plant roots. Other
environment features include such
water conservation efforts as natural
sunlight and a parking lot in which water
drains toward the landscaped centre.
University officials are aiming for gold
LEED certification. The new school
features state-of-the-art technology
and equipment, including ample
videoconferencing capabilities to the
University of Western Ontario and an
anatomy and virtual anatomy lab.
Clearly, the primary reason for offering
medical education in Windsor is to address
the physician shortage in the region.
Windsor-Essex suffers from a range of
healthcare needs:
• it has to recruit another 100 general
practitioners and specialists;
• Windsor has 109 doctors per 100,000
people, below even Prince Edward Island
(which ranks last among provinces in that
category);
• only 8.6 percent of primary care
physicians in the region accept new
patients;
• the steadily growing population of
Windsor-Essex is outpacing the number of
physicians recruited, and
• there is strong competition from the U.S.
for physicians.
“The theory is well accepted that if you
take people from the area and train them in
the area, they’re most likely to stay here to
practise,” says Scott.
In addition to encouraging new doctors
to set up in Windsor, the medical program
will be responsive to the multicultural
diversity of the region, says Scott. For
example, Scott and his staff recruit people
from the multicultural community to be
standardized patients in the simulated
training provided in the new program.
The program is also part of the growth
of a new medical sector in Windsor. David
Musyj, president and CEO of Windsor
Regional Hospital, says students in the
hospital are getting the “opportunity to work
in a positive environment with an array of
experienced medical and professional staff”
giving them “a renewed sense of purpose
and commitment to ongoing education as we
strive to fulfill our vision of Outstanding Care
– No Exceptions.”
The success of UWindsor and Western
in fast-tracking the new medical program
is attracting attention at the University of
Toronto Mississauga, where its academy
director, Dr. Pamela Coates, says, “We look
forward to benefiting from our colleagues’
experience in Windsor as we work to roll out
our program in 2010 and we are encouraged
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