The fruits of Canadian medical schools' labours are reflected in the grateful eyes of a prostate cancer patient, the sighs of relief from the parents of a premature baby and the vibrant outlook of a heart-transplant recipient.
Dr. Nick Busing
Dr. Nick Busing
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But the work of medical faculties' lab and clinical professionals, students and partners also is a vital contributor to social and economic health.
Ask Dr. Nick Busing, an Ottawa family physician and head of the association representing Canada's 17 faculties of medicine, how deeply these schools cut into the health-care system and he stresses, "They need to be seen as a stimulus for economic growth."
Dr. Busing and other medical-school advocates and supporters acknowledge realizing research goals amounts to a team effort, also involving health-care organizations, nursing, pharmacy and other professional schools, and funding bodies and government.
And when it comes to where vital medical school research funding should go, "There are no research centres more important than others, although there are some niche universities," Dr. Busing says in an interview from Ottawa, home base of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC).
Both long-standing and recently released research highlight the integral role of Canadian medical schools, at home and internationally.
For instance, McGill University's faculty of medicine was involved in an international collaboration that led to the discovery of nine new sites in the human genome that have variants that can increase the risk of prostate cancer. The study, led by Europe's Institute of Cancer Research and the University of Cambridge and published in October, could one day aid in a genetic-based treatment.
In his laboratory at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry in Edmonton, Dr. Bernard Thébaud studied stem cells' effect on the lungs of baby rats. Leading a research team that included doctors and scientists from Montreal, France and the U.S., Dr. Thébaud reported in a U.S. journal in November that their discovery may lead to a treatment for chronic lung problems of premature babies.
In Eastern Canada, Dalhousie Medical School faculty members have been instrumental in developing organ-transplantation protocols used around the world. And at Memorial University of Newfoundland's Faculty of Medicine, a "21st-century research model that integrates clinical research" involves multidisciplinary teams that led to an ARVC sudden cardiac death gene discovery.
"It is critical that research and education be integrated with patient care" to get the most "relevant" findings to help Canadians, Dr. James Rourke, dean of Memorial's faculty of medicine and the AFMC's chairman, says in an interview.
The AFMC, in a brief to a federal standing committee on finance and in its policy statements, stresses Canada's global leadership position in public investments and health research, and the government's focus on increasing competitiveness.
Dr. Busing says AFMC staff and deans of medicine from across Canada had promising meetings in early November with members of Parliament and senators to emphasize the role of faculties of medicine in health and biomedical research, health human resource planning, medical education and world-renowned clinical care.
The meetings came on the heels of AFMC's recommendations submitted to a federal finance committee — which is currently in pre-budget consultations — that call for, among other things, increased residency positions to address Canada's doctor shortage and increased funding for medical research.
The AFMC brief, titled "Smart Spending in Difficult Times: Investing in Our Future," notes investments made through funding bodies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities and Research Council (SSHRC) are helping Canada address health-care needs. These investments have also helped better deliver health care to difficult-to-service populations such as the First Nations, Inuit and Métis, as well as the homeless, and reduce wait times for health services.
Total health-related research and development spending in Canada was estimated at $6.2-billion in 2008, according to Statistics Canada. The CIHR, meanwhile, had funding expenditures of $917-million in 2008-09, down from $927-million in 2007-08, with the 2009-10 budget pegged at $926-million.
While research and health-care funding was scaled back in the federal government's 2009 budget because of the economic downturn, it's time to resume investing in those areas, says the AFCM, which recommends the 2010 budget include "a strategic and balanced increase in research funding" to the CIHR, the major federal agency responsible for funding health research.
"This increase must be balanced to cover the entire spectrum of health research," the AFCM recommendation paper says. "While biomedical and clinical research is vital to the basis of our health-care system in Canada, health services and policy research and the broader social science research are critical for the health of the nation."
Universities account for about two-thirds of the funds granted by the CIHR, although the institute doesn't break down how much of that goes to faculties of medicine. However, the AFMC says, "faculties of medicine attract health research funding that exceeds 50 per cent of the total research revenues of their parent universities and faculty-based research plays a pivotal role in the health and biomedical research enterprise in this country."
Alain Beaudet, the CIHR's president, notes the unique role of medical schools, which in Canada work in conjunction with teaching hospitals, in training highly skilled workers and creating jobs that are essential to both the health-care system and economy. But in an interview from his Ottawa office, he said while universities with medical schools are major researchers, schools without faculties of medicine also contribute to the knowledge pool.
"We have to think in terms of all schools affiliated with health, because there is cutting-edge work being done in the area of robotics, medical imaging, stem-cell engineering, tissue engineering … that involves medical researchers as well as engineers, business, designers…," he says. "That's the future of health research — to bridge the barriers between the [medical] professionals and other disciplines."
Special to The Globe and Mail
