The university takes collaborative approach to its School of Medicine proposal

Ryerson has been taking a unique approach as it develops a proposal for a School of Medicine in Brampton. From the beginning, community engagement, feedback and input has been the guiding principle for how the school will come to life.

“Community engagement is a distinguishing feature of our proposal,” said Ryerson University President and Vice-Chancellor Mohamed Lachemi . “It’s not common for institutions to involve their community members at this level, but we want to be extremely collaborative.”

President Lachemi has been conducting community consultations with Brampton city councillors to get a better understanding from local residents on what they would like to see from a School of Medicine in their city. An online survey (external link)  is open for Brampton community members to fill out before December 3, 2021. 

In addition to town halls with Brampton councillors, Ryerson has reached thousands of people throughout the region of Peel through its outreach to several hundred social service organizations, provincial and national health associations, faith and cultural groups, hospital leaders, health care professionals, business leaders and unions.

Building on the spring consultations (external link) , the university is also hosting several virtual sessions (external link)  for students, faculty and staff until December 2 to support the initial proposal development. These sessions address different topics such as curriculum, diversity, equity and inclusion and reconciliation. Sessions include updates on the planning process for the School of Medicine and are interactive, allowing participants to share their perspectives. 

The feedback Ryerson receives from the community consultations will help the university build a proposal that outlines the ways Ryerson's School of Medicine will train future physicians to effectively meet the health-care needs of Ontario's and Canada's diverse population.

The end result of this process is a Letter of Intent, an initial proposal that is required for new programs as part of the university’s collegial governance process; the Letter of Intent will include the insights and feedback from consultation participants.

Following the initial funding announcement earlier this year, approximately 100 people from across the institution have been volunteering through the School of Medicine planning structure and contributing their expertise to shape the proposal. 

The university’s School of Medicine is built around five pillars:

• Focusing on community-centric primary care and the social determinants of health
• Providing culturally respectful care to communities
• Leveraging innovation and technology in practices to improve quality of care and patient outcomes
• Providing future physicians with the skills to develop interprofessional networks of health care to achieve better outcomes for patients 
• Focusing on the aging and supporting seniors as a growing portion of our society gets older 

For more information on how to get involved, visit the School of Medicine’s Get Involved page.

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• Ryerson receives funding from the City of Brampton for School of Medicine 
• Ryerson University receives planning grant for medical school in Brampton