Message from President & CEO Debbie Sevenpifer
Debbie Sevenpifer,
President and Chief Executive Officer
The success of the McMaster University Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine campus in Niagara demonstrates the power of partnership.
The Niagara campus is of benefit to hospital staff, medical colleagues and medical students. Ultimately, it is the residents of Niagara who will benefit the most from the presence of the medical school in our community since the quality of healthcare increases when hospitals become teaching campuses.
The success of the Niagara medical school — in just three and a half short years since its creation was first announced by the provincial government — is testament to the power of partnership and to how organizations can work together to advance healthcare in Niagara and beyond. Niagara Health takes great pride in our positive relationships with McMaster University and Brock University, and we are very proud to be partnering with both of these institutions on this initiative.
There are currently 15 second-year and 20 first-year students learning in Niagara, and the number of students training at all sites of Niagara Health will continue to grow.
The Niagara campus is housed at the St. Catharines General Site and has full interconnectivity with classrooms and resources in Hamilton. Features are being incorporated in the new St. Catharines healthcare complex, now under construction, for it to become a learning environment when it opens in 2013. While the campus will move to a new Brock building in 2011, the new St. Catharines healthcare complex will house teaching spaces for medical students and residents, including classrooms, on-call rooms and student lounges.
The new regional health programs to be offered at the healthcare complex will provide excellent learning opportunities for students and residents. Students and residents will continue to be educated at all NHS sites in 2013 and beyond. On-call rooms, classrooms, lockers and student lounges will be available at the Welland and Niagara Falls sites, and Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Port Colborne will each have a classroom.
A vital component in a medical school is the calibre of teaching, and more than 170 physicians in Niagara have joined the medical school as faculty members. Almost every doctor who participated in the first year is teaching again this year, and there are hundreds more physicians interested in participating.
I am pleased to hear that the medical students feel so welcomed by our healthcare team and find the experience of learning in our hospital so enjoyable. Our physicians, nurses and staff love the energy, enthusiasm and willingness the medical students bring to their role as members of the healthcare team. They enjoy working alongside their future colleagues in healthcare, benefitting from the students by sharing knowledge and experiences, and learning from them.
Recruiting physicians is a major challenge for hospitals in Ontario and across North America. There just aren’t enough of them to meet the demand. Our partnership with McMaster and Brock provides us with a valuable new physician recruitment opportunity. The program gives the students a taste of working at Niagara Health, and we have a new opportunity to attract and recruit these new graduates every year directly from the program.
The power of partnership is alive and thriving in Niagara. «
