NWP president Dr. Vanessa Sheane (l) and The U. of A.’s Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarn (r) after signing on MOU on medical training coming to Grande Prairie. Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

Healthcare

Physician training in Grande Prairie set to start in the fall of 2025

Apr 26, 2024 | 5:24 PM

The training of family physicians in Grande Prairie is expected to start in the fall of 2025.

Officials from Northwestern Polytechnic and the University of Alberta signed a memorandum of understanding Friday afternoon at the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital.

The province announced on April 3 that the two schools would work together on a physician training centre.

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the U. of A. Dr. Brenda Hemmelgarn says the university needs to train and recruit physicians locally so they will practice locally.

“There’s evidence of that from a number of other provinces and Prince George in northern B.C. is probably the closest example that we’ve been modelling this after, so it’s really what we need to do for northern regional and remote Alberta is train physicians here.”

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NWP president Dr. Vanessa Sheane says this is “transformational in both health care and education.”

“Alberta is one of the few provinces that does not have a distributed medical education model. Currently in Alberta, if you want to be a physician, you need to go to school in Edmonton or Calgary. (In) most other provinces, it’s not like that. You can go to other non-big cities.”

Applications for prospective students will open in July. There will be 30 openings in the first year

Dr. Sheane says the next step will be what she calls “facility pieces”, including upgrades to classrooms at the hospital to allow students to connect with the campus in Edmonton.

“So, if there’s lectures or whatever that they need to connect in with the Edmonton cohort.”

“We also will be constructing an anatomy lab and that will go in our main building (NWP campus), so not in this space (GPRH) but across the street in our main building, and then there’s the support staff for the program, so the simulation labs, the other labs, getting the staff in to support those pieces.”

Dr. Sheane adds there is some specialized equipment that will need to be brought in as well.

Dr. Hemmelgarn says the next steps will also include a teaching clinic in the new Maskwa Medical Centre that will be built near the hospital.

“One entire floor of that building is going to be a teaching clinic where there will be up to 10 family doctors, that will be there in that teaching clinic with medical students as well as family medicine residents, so residents who will be doing their two years of family medicine training there and ideally stay on to practice in these rural communities.”

Dr, Hemmelgarn says each these physicians will have to 1000 patients each, plus it will be open after hours and in the evening. She thinks this will meet a need in the community.

She adds officials are “feeling the pressure” to be ready to start on time.

“So, the big thing for the first year of medical school is it’s very much classroom -based. That’s the first two years of the medical program so it’s really to ensure that the curriculum is ready.”

Applicants must have an undergraduate degree, but in can be in any area of study.

Dr. Sheane says degrees in areas like nursing, plus non-medical fields, can be completed here.

She adds NWP is also working on developing a program for students to earn a degree in health sciences….

“So, that degree could be seen as a pre-professional degree, right? Whether it’s for medicine or physio or other professional programs that you need that undergraduate degree.”

“That’s the exciting piece that we’re working on now (and) heavily into the fall and so stay tuned, I guess, for that piece.”

Dr. Sheane says this means students would not have to leave this area at all as they could complete their undergraduate degree, study medicine, and do their residency here in the north.

NWP has information on the medical training on its website.