Listen to the full story here:
Admissions will be opening soon for Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) new medical school — with special attention being paid to ensuring a more equitable and diverse inaugural class.
The university announced that its School of Medicine has received preliminary accreditation from the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools in a Sept. 27 press release.
“Training innovative, inclusive physicians starts at recruitment,” said Dr. Teresa M. Chan, dean of the School of Medicine in the release.
“With that in mind, we have developed intentional application and admissions processes that have the school’s mission at their core, and that reflect community and societal needs,” Chan said.
The admission process will feature targeted pathways for applicants who identify as Indigenous, Black or another equity-deserving group, according to TMU, with a focus on addressing the underrepresentation of these groups in the medical profession.
TMU says this marks the first time a new medical school will open in the Greater Toronto Area in over a century.
The university says the School of Medicine will be located in Brampton and partner with the William Osler Health System.
The school will aim to address Ontario’s shortage of primary care physicians, TMU says, by creating a new model of medical education focused on inclusivity and community engagement.
However, the program is not without its detractors.
“If you put quotas, or if you try to look at specific groups and target them in terms of the admission process, that’s going to create more problems than solutions,” said Rama Nair, former medical school admissions officer at the University of Ottawa.
Nair says TMU’s application process for the med school is wrong, as it could attract those who are not prepared for the program or who are not as interested.
“If you push them through, that’s not going to help them,” he said.
Nair said he believes support and mentorship should be provided to disadvantaged communities in high school, encouraging them to apply to medical school earlier on.
TMU will not require the MCAT in its admissions process. The MCAT is normally an integral — but costly — part of admission into medical school.
Nyah Shah, a student at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, says she wishes other medical schools across Canada would reconsider requiring the MCAT, as TMU has.
“This makes it accessible to marginalized people, because the MCAT is expensive,” Shah said. “It takes months of studying outside of school, and you can buy training modules, so people who have jobs will likely perform worse.”
Prospective TMU medical students can submit their applications starting Oct. 9.
The inaugural class is set to begin in September 2025. The MD program offers 94 seats.
Reporter, On the Record, Fall 2024
Reporter for TMU - Master of Journalism
