Deal signed to create medical school program at U of L

“The students go right though [classroom studies] for three years and are in the hospitals quite quickly. It’s a very well-respected and well-ranked school, so to then bring that expertise here, I think, in the best sense, speeds up that process of training physicians in this location,” says Werthner.

The goal of creating a doctor training program in Lethbridge is to have more physicians practicing in the area in the long term. Werthner says approximately 75 per cent of doctors end up living and practicing in the same areas in which they went to school.

U of L Interim Provost and Vice-President of Academics Michelle Helstein says they plan to admit approximately 30 students per year initially and potentially increase that number over time.

Given that as many as 1,200 people can be attached to one family physician, the hope is that this will go a long way in addressing southern Alberta’s long-standing doctor shortage.

“This program is going to have huge impacts on the availability of doctors in, not only the City of Lethbridge, but across southern Alberta,” says Helstein. “What we know is that if you recruit students locally, you train them locally, they’re more likely to stay locally.”

With the signing of the MOU, the universities will now formally come together to create the program in Lethbridge.

Last month, the Government of Alberta announced $224.8 million dollars to create Rural Medical Education Training Centres at both the U of L and Northwestern Polytechnic in Grande Prairie.

The program in Lethbridge is expected to open in the 2025-26 academic year. The first group of graduates could become fully licensed physicians in 2030.

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by David Opinko

Deal signed to create medical school program at U of L

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