Ontario Building New Medical School at York University Focused on Primary Care Doctors
New school is one of a number of provincial initiatives that will help connect up to 98 per cent of Ontario residents to primary care.
The Ontario government is providing an initial investment of $9 million through the 2024 budget, Building a Better Ontario, to begin the design and planning for York University’s new medical school in Vaughan. The new medical school will be the first in Canada that is focused on training primary care doctors and is helping fulfill Ontario’s commitment to ensure that everyone who wants to have a primary care provider can access one.
“Today’s announcement is part of our plan to connect more Ontario families to more convenient care, including primary care,” said Premier Doug Ford. “As the first medical school in Canada focused primarily on training family doctors, this new school will make an enormous impact in the lives of people in York Region and across Ontario.”
This new medical school will include up to 80 undergraduate seats and up to 102 postgraduate seats starting in September 2028, with up to 240 undergraduate seats and 293 postgraduate seats on an annual basis once operating at full capacity.
By focusing primarily on training family doctors, the York University training model will devote approximately 70 per cent of the new postgraduate training seats to primary care, when the medical school becomes operational in 2028. In addition to other historic investments to increase the number of medical school seats, expand interprofessional primary care teams and efforts to break down barriers so highly skilled internationally trained doctors can care for people in Ontario, Ministry of Health modelling shows that these initiatives will help connect up to 98 per cent of people in Ontario to primary care in the next several years.
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