Preliminary findings of assessing NOSM's social accountability toward Northern & rural Francophone communities

Abstract

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) was founded in 2003 with a specific mandate to improve the health of the people and communities of Northern Ontario. The objective of this project was to determine whether NOSM was remaining socially accountable to the healthcare needs of Francophones in Northern Ontario by: (i) graduating physicians capable of offering French language services, and (ii) identifying whether these physicians are locating their practice in areas of greatest need for such services. Specifically, if NOSM learners’ who reported having French as a language of competence at entry to, and exit from, medical school located their practices in areas densely populated by Francophones in Northern Ontario. To do so, three data sources were utilized; a) the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research Tracking Study data of NOSM learners; b) the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) public “Find a Doctor” search; and c) the 2016 Statistics Canada Census data. Laurentian University Research Ethics Board approval was obtained for this project. In this project, I found that 39% and 38% of learners identified French competency in the entry and exit tracking survey respectively. Of the French respondents identified in the tracking surveys, 20% and 21% identified French competency in practice (CPSO registry). A total of 70% of NOSM French-competent graduates were currently practising in a Francophone community in Ontario (i.e., total population having ≥ 10% of Francophones), with ~92% of French-competent respondents having located their practice in a French community in the north (having a postal code beginning with P). These preliminary results suggest that NOSM is achieving its mission of social accountability towards Francophones in northern Ontario and more specifically, that NOSM is helping to improving the availability of French language medical services for Francophones in Ontario.