By Randall Zarin, MBA, MPH, CPA
Canada’s expansion of medical education comes at a crucial time, with new medical schools designed to address physician shortages, improve healthcare access, and foster innovation. While these institutions will operate within Canada’s unique healthcare and accreditation frameworks, they can learn valuable lessons from U.S. medical schools that have recently navigated similar challenges.
Certain institutions serve as an example and offer both strategic insights and tactical lessons into facilities planning, clinical partnerships, financial sustainability, faculty recruitment, stakeholder communications and long-term growth.
Below, we explore key takeaways and the most important Leading Practices that Canadian medical schools should consider within the context if its unique health ecosystem.
1. Build Future-Proof Facilities with Flexibility and Innovation
Key U.S. Examples:
- UNLV (Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada Las Vegas) designed a state-of-the-art medical education facility with adaptable spaces, ensuring flexibility for evolving curricula and new technologies. The land was donated by the hospital/county and a public-private partnership was formed to construct and design the building.
- UHCOM (University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine) built its facilities with a primary care and community health focus, ensuring the campus environment supported team-based, patient-centered training.
- Texas A&M School of Engineering Medicine (EnMed) built a unique engineering-medicine hybrid training environment, where medical students also earn a master’s in engineering, allowing them to design and implement medical innovations, in a re-purposed facility that was originally an office building and bank
- Arizona State University is launching a new medical school and has not yet seated its first class; however, they are designing everything aimed at education through advancing healthcare innovation. ASU’s President Crow openly shares his vision of “educating Star Trek doctors”1 emphasizing the integration of cutting-edge technology, AI, biomedical advancements, and engineering into medial education and ASU has planned a future state-of-the-art facility designed to meet this vision.
What Canadian Schools Should Consider:
- Design flexible, technology-driven learning spaces to support active learning, simulation-based education, and interprofessional training.
- Invest in digital labs and AI-powered medical training tools to maximize space efficiency and align with modern medical education trends.
- Co-locate research and clinical spaces to strengthen integration between education, innovation, and patient care.
- Consider integrating engineering, AI, and biomedical research spaces and programs to encourage innovation in healthcare technology.
2. Secure Early and Sustainable Clinical Training Partnerships
Key U.S. Examples:
- UTRGV (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) School of Medicine embedded students directly into community clinics and hospitals, ensuring real-world patient exposure early in training.
- UNLV built strong relationships with Nevada’s healthcare system to increase residency training opportunities alongside its medical education expansion.
- UHCOM focused on community-based primary care training, ensuring its students were embedded in outpatient and underserved settings.
- Texas A&M EnMed integrated clinical training within Houston’s Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world, ensuring access to cutting-edge patient care and medical technology.
What Canadian Schools Should Consider:
- Expand clinical training beyond traditional hospitals utilizing primary care settings, community clinics, behavioral health and mental health clinical and ambulatory centers, including Urgent Care and ASCs.
- Develop regional healthcare partnerships to ensure sustainable student placements, especially in underserved areas.
- Align clinical education with provincial healthcare goals such as rural medicine, Indigenous health, and preventive care.
Explore partnerships with biomedical research centers and health technology hubs to integrate medical innovation with clinical training.
3. Establish Strong and Diverse Financial Models
Key U.S. Examples:
- UNLV launched faculty practice plans, generating revenue while integrating faculty-led clinical care into medical education.
- UTRGV leveraged public and private funding to grow its residency programs alongside its medical school, ensuring long-term physician retention.
- UHCOM, with its community-based mission, secured state and philanthropic funding to support students committed to primary care in underserved areas.
What Canadian Schools Should Consider:
- Explore faculty practice plans that provide medical faculty with opportunities to generate revenue while supporting clinical education.
- Secure government and private-sector partnerships for research funding, tech-driven healthcare models, and innovation hubs.
- Develop a clear financial sustainability plan that aligns with healthcare workforce needs and long-term institutional growth.
- Leverage partnerships with the health-tech sector to attract investment in medical innovation and research.
4. Compete for Top Faculty with Innovative Recruitment Strategies
Key U.S. Examples:
- UTRGV and UNLV attracted top faculty by offering joint appointments with healthcare partners, leadership roles, and loan forgiveness programs.
- UHCOM focused on faculty with expertise in primary care, public health, and social determinants of health, aligning with its mission to train community-focused physicians.
What Canadian Schools Should Consider:
- Develop faculty recruitment strategies beyond salary incentives offering leadership pathways, research funding, and opportunities to shape curriculum and clinical care models.
- Leverage hospital and community health partnerships to attract practicing physicians into academia through joint faculty roles.
- Position new medical schools as innovation hubs, appealing to faculty who want to be part of transformative medical education models.
5. Plan for Growth with Long-Term Healthcare System Impact in Mind
Key U.S. Examples:
· UTRGV aligned its growth with Texas’s need for rural physicians, focusing on residency expansion and physician retention programs.
· UNLV built research capacity alongside clinical education, ensuring that faculty and students contribute to healthcare innovation.
· UHCOM developed a medical education model specifically focused on increasing the number of primary care doctors in underserved areas, ensuring that its graduates would directly impact local health outcomes.
· Texas A&M EnMed demonstrated a forward-thinking approach by integrating engineering and medicine, ensuring graduates are prepared to lead in medical innovation.
What Canadian Schools Should Consider:
- Align medical school expansion with provincial healthcare priorities, ensuring training programs match workforce needs.
- Integrate research into the medical school’s long-term vision, supporting faculty and students in solving real-world healthcare challenges.
- Plan for residency and postgraduate training opportunities from the outset, ensuring that medical graduates can - and want to - stay and practice in Canada.
- Foster a culture of innovation by creating programs that merge medicine with engineering, AI, and digital health.
Key Takeaways for Canadian Medical Schools:
- Flexible, technology-driven facilities will future-proof medical education and enhance student learning.
- Sustainable clinical partnerships with hospitals, community clinics, and rural healthcare providers are essential.
- Financial sustainability must go beyond government funding, leveraging faculty practice plans, philanthropy, and industry collaborations.
- Faculty recruitment and retention will require creative incentives, joint appointments, and opportunities for leadership.
- Long-term planning for residency and workforce retention is critical to ensuring Canada’s investment in new medical schools translates to more practicing physicians.
- Integration of AI and digital health will prepare students for the future of medicine.
By adopting these lessons, Canada’s new and emerging medical schools can not only train more doctors but also create institutions that drive healthcare innovation, improve access to care, and shape the future of medical education.