Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

Post-Secondary Education

First NAMP sessions start Monday

Aug 25, 2025 | 6:00 AM

It is the first day of classes for the first-ever students in the Northern Alberta Medical Program.

The group of 30 is doing an orientation week at the University of Alberta this week before starting their training on September 2 in Grande Prairie

Grande Prairie family doctor and program assistant dean Dr. Richard Martin says it is very exciting for the people involved.

“It has been a significant amount of lifting of all the administrative staff here associated with the Northern Alberta Medical Program and a large number of people within the medical doctor program at the U of A who have been working together, really, to bring this program to fruition.”

Martin says the training for doctors will fit inside Northwestern Polytechnic’s Health Education Centre in the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital, the same place where nurses are trained.

“It actually is a really unique opportunity. The Edmonton site of the U of A medical doctor program is actually, essentially, sited to itself in a building and they don’t really have the same immediate collaborative opportunities with other health professions.”

“There are many other health professions on campus, but they’re just not in the same physical space.”

Martin says the students in Grande Prairie will learn the same stuff as the students at the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton.

Martin says both places have classrooms that will be linked together.

Questions can go in both directions.

The lecturer could be in Edmonton, Grande Prairie, or in a third location, although most of the lectures will be delivered from Edmonton.

Dr. Martin says a lot of thought and planning went into the technological side.

He adds they wanted to make sure “the technology integration is as seamless as possible was a really vital component of having the students feel like they are getting the learning in the same way at the same time.”

Dr. Martin says family doctors and specialists will work with groups of eight to 10 students to look at what might be bothering patients.

There will also be instruction on how to examine and communicate with patients.

Dr. Martin says there is “incredible energy and interest” not only in Grande Prairie but in other communities in the Peace about this program. He says other communities have been willing to “participate in organizing and providing input.”

He adds “this would have been a unique opportunity” when he started medical school and “it is still a unique opportunity now” and it is exciting to see the faces of the students as the are excited, nervous and “justifiably proud.”