FAQ

As a busy clinician, you may be wondering why (and how!) you would fit one more task into your day. This editorial entitled “Benefits of Teaching Medical Students: Perspectives from a Community Physician Preceptor” may help. Teaching provides:

• opportunity to shape the future of healthcare

• allows us to stay up to date and challenge our current knowledge and perceptions. 

• provides increased capacity and colleagues to lighten our future load 

Supervising trainees is not without its challenges, and as this paper points out, creating creative scheduling to help time manage clinical load and supervision is very important. 

So why teach at TMU? Because we have the opportunity to think differently than other medical schools, by building a new medical school that is future focused, right from the ground up, with a focus on equity and community inclusion (ECI), technology and generalism. And with your involvement, we can achieve this.

TMU focuses on and celebrates Generalist training, regardless of future career choice. We want future doctors who:

• Appreciate the breadth of experience and deep and meaningful connections that generalist physicians such as family medicine, geriatrics or pediatric practitioners experience.

• Are as diverse as the populations they serve 

• Appreciate the importance of this diversity, community inclusivity and interprofessional collaborations

• Are trained using competency based methods and harnessing the power of innovation and technology to train physicians who are ready for the future of medicine

You may already teach at another medical school. There will be a lot of similarities as well as a lot of differences. However, we believe it is in this mix of similarities and differences that we will learn from each other, share various resources and ways of doing and make our clinical practices more robust. 

Currently, TMU SoM is associated with 3 Clinical Partners: 

• William Osler Health System: TMU/Osler Education Leads are listed here and can direct you to ways to get involved with TMU SoM through Osler. 

• Trillium Health Partners 

• Headwaters Healthcare System 

However, you don’t need to be at an affiliated site to become clinical faculty at TMU. We welcome community and other hospital sites as below. We are also continuing to develop connections and agreements with other sites as TMU evolves. If you are a community physician in the Brampton/Etobicoke/Orangeville/Bolton area looking to supervise TMU trainees, please connect with Dr Jobin Varughese at http://app.reclaim.ai/m/drjv.

TMU will welcome 94 medical students in September 2025. The MD Program curriculum is designed to:

• educate diverse primary care physicians with an ECI lens as advocates & leaders

• embed training in innovation and technology to create “future focused” clinicians .

• purposely promote a generalist perspective by weaving seven curricular threads throughout the curriculum

• use a Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) assessment framework, to sequentially progress from a novice to a graduate skilled to enter residency training. This expands on the CBME approach which now involves all PGME as described on the Royal College website.

• Promote longitudinal and primary care learning experiences

Additionally, our curriculum focuses on teaching our students to be empathetic, humane and socially accountable physicians through courses in health systems science, community and global health, professional and personal development and Indigenous communities and health.   

There will be multiple opportunities throughout the 3 Phases of the program to teach.  

• In Phase 1 Foundations (September of year 1 through March of year 2) there will be opportunities to lead large groups on specific topics related to the curriculum and to facilitate small groups in case-based learning.  

• In Phase 2, Clinical and Community Immersion (April of year 2 through September of year 3) there are opportunities to precept learners in office-based clinics (both Family Medicine and Specialties), acute care hospital environments, and long-term care facilities, along with lecturing/facilitating.  

• In Phase 3’s Professionalization phase (October of year 4 through to completion in April of that year) there are opportunities to supervise electives and facilitate case-based learning.  There will also be opportunities to be a mentor and help prepare students for the residency application process.

TMU plans to welcome 105 residents to 17 training programs in July of 2025

• Our residency programs will have a focus on generalist specialties including Family Medicine, six Family Medicine Enhanced Skills programs (Addictions Medicine, Care of the Elderly, Emergency Medicine, Family Practice Anesthesia, Palliative Care, and Sport and Exercise Medicine), and 10 Royal College programs (Anesthesia, Emergency Medicine, General Surgery, General Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Surgical Foundations). 

• Our Interim Collaborative Program Directors (featured here) are rapidly developing these programs

On February 12th, 2024 the Canadian Residency Accreditation Consortium (CanRAC) recognized the School of Medicine as an ‘Accredited New Institution,’ making us one of 18 Canadian universities capable of developing accredited residency programs. We will hear back regarding further accreditation status in May of 2024.

By July of 2027 we hope to graduate 97 Family Medicine specialists and within the following years, 6 geriatricians and 8 general internists. It is our intention to  work with our clinical affiliates in the hopes of retaining every one of them in Brampton and surrounding communities. The PGME learners we train and retain will go on to become our local colleagues, providing increased healthcare capacity to our local systems, including the capacity for the teaching clerkship medical learners. Getting involved with the PGME program will help to network with future colleagues and have a say in building healthcare capacity in your clinical area.

Please review the EDI Strategy and Action Plan for the TMU School of Medicine.

The Community, Culture and Belonging Office is currently curating a database of resources that will be shared once it's ready. The Office of Equity and Community Inclusion at TMU also has excellent resources and training available.

TMU SoM is rethinking how we provide medical education-including our organizational structures. Rather than a siloed approach that organizes faculty by their educational training, our Departments and Divisions are organized by function, grouping clinicians that engage with their patients in similar ways to promote inter- and intra-professional collaboration. Because of this, we will have 2 primary departments with subdivided division groups to allow for practice communities while still advancing interdisciplinary collaboration.

• The Department of Community & Primary Care integrates primary care and subspecialty physicians to enhance collaboration and support for patients in the community,  and changes in the healthcare system. Divisions include:

  • Division of Primary Care & Subspecialties (e.g. Palliative Care, Geriatrics, Pediatrics)

  • Division of Outpatient Care & Subspecialties (e.g. Medicine subspecialties, Pediatrics subspecialties)

  • Division of Psychiatry and Mental Health (including addictions medicine specialists)

  • Division of Outpatient Surgery & Proceduralists (e.g. Hand surgery, Ophthalmology, Rheumatology, GI endoscopy, Aesthetic surgery)

• The Department of Hospital & Institutional Care augments the role of generalist-minded physicians across hospital and institutional care, and builds on the interprofessional team approach for complex chronic disease management. Divisions include: 

  • Division of Hospitalists, Diagnostics & Long-Term Care (Internal medicine, Family medicine, Diagnostic Imaging, Pathology)

  • Division of Hospital-Based Surgery (including Obstetrics & Gynecology)

  • Division of Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, Prehospital & Transport Medicine (CFPC/FRCPC)

  • Division of Anesthesia (including pain medicine & perioperative care)

  • Division of Pediatrics

Clinicians may have more than one affiliation across departments and divisions. Learn more about this department and division strategy here.

Our Clinical Faculty Recruitment Website has everything you need to know to apply, and learn about your new role as Clinical Faculty.