Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
The West Nipissing General Hospital is home to one of the 87 medical training facilities that FedNor has invested in recently. This month, the federal government announced $1,968,386 in funding to establish or expand Northern Ontario School of Medicine University (NOSM University) training sites. This news comes right as three students just completed their Comprehensive Community Clerkship (CCC) placements at the WNGH and is welcome news for the hospital’s President and CEO, Dawn Morissette, who is pleased to see more and more up and coming physicians.
The announcement from FedNor focuses on expanding training facilities and creating more learning spaces for future doctors in the North. However, as Morissette explains, that doesn’t necessarily mean expanding the physical space in a training hospital, but can mean providing more support so that staff can take on more students at a time. “For example, a few years ago we only had two clerkship students. We have recently increased to 3. We currently have one position for a resident to come and be based here while they do the final stages of their learning. Eventually, we’d like to move to 2. So, that’s the kind of investment that they’re talking about,” she explains. This can mean paying for support staff to make the NOSM programs run smoothly and paying the physicians for their time while they teach.
