Toward a healthier economy: the Northern Ontario School of Medicine has injected millions into the North's economy, and it's just getting started.

The inhabitants of Northern Ontario are not the only ones who stand to be healthier once the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) gets down to work.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Through its design, construction and ongoing operation, it has and will continue to inject a healthy dose of activity into the North's economy, as well.

The design of the two campuses at Sudbury's Laurentian University and Lakehead University of Thunder Bay were completed by Nicholls Yallowega, Belanger Architects and Teeple Architects of Toronto, respectively.

The school's early administration was given $95.3 million by the province to get the school started.

About $32.9 million of that went toward the construction of the campuses, creating dozens of construction jobs in both Northern cities for the duration of the project, according to NOSM CAO Dorothy Wright.

That left $62.4 million for startup operational expenses.

"When we finish our startup money, we will have ongoing funding of around $21 million per year, in addition to what funds may be coming in from research and from other specific initiatives," Wright explains. "We have, in addition to that, acquired another $6 million from the federal government which has gone into the school's research capacity (in purchasing) specialized research equipment at both sites. That allows our researchers to engage in specialized research and also to attract more research dollars."

This spending to increase capacity to attract more investment will mean an appreciation in the number of people employed by the school, she says.

"As of Aug. 1, we have just under 100 academic and administrative full-time staff. That will continue to grow as we expand the school; we have several recruiters out there right now."

When the school is going full-bore, it will employ in the neighbourhood of 500, and as many as 600, people.

"(That is) including participation by many of Northern Ontario's physicians, who will be called upon to be part-time clinical faculty," Wright explains. "Keeping in mind the majority, about 350 or so, will be clinical faculty, which are physicians who will be participating in the school by taking students to work with them, facilitating sessions or actually leading some topic-oriented lectures or sessions for students."

The school has generated "incredible optimism," as to what it will be able to do, according to Dr. Fred Gilbert, president of Lakehead University.

"It's not just about health-care in the long term, it's about a linkage with economic development."

He adds the effect of the school won't just be felt on-campus, but out in the community as well, as the city's reputation improves and more professionals, young or otherwise, see Thunder Bay as a good place to settle down or set up shop.

But he is quick to temper those expectations with some realism, saying many of the benefits NOSM will bring to the city will likely not be immediate.

But it is a lot easier to attract investment when potential employers or employees know they can have a doctor's appointment without waiting for three years, according to Dr. Tim Zmijowskyj, division head, clinical services.

"It's a serious issue the school can address," he says. "And there is good research to support that."

There will be dozens of people performing research for the school, not all of them doctors or medical students, and not all of them in Thunder Bay or Sudbury.

Nurses, nurse practitioners and other health-care professionals in any number of small Northern locales will be performing research that will spur spending in the sector while contributing to the world's body of scientific knowledge.

"Research is a significant part of a medical school, as well," Wright says.

"It is not to be underestimated."

Searching for dollars

Dr. Greg Ross is NOSM's associate dean responsible for research. About a year ago, he says, the Northern Ontario Biotechnology Initiative (NOBI) commissioned a report on regional opportunities to move NOSM research forward.

Exactly what research projects will be taken on is still up in the air, but Ross says it is safe to assume some will centre around diabetes, First Nations health care and medical education research; all will examine health issues specific to Northern Ontario.

As far as budget goes, Ross would be "ecstatic" to attract $4 million in operating grants between the two campuses.

"That's ambitious, but I think we can get there."

On average, he says, any given school should bring in about $120,000 per researcher per year. That figure should appreciate over time, he says.

"We really hope to expand pan-Northern research," he says, noting the many small communities where NOSM students will take up residency training will be involved in research activities as well, such as environmental studies.

For example, the link between water quality and the health of local residents, or metal contamination from sources such as tailings ponds and the disease patterns they may or may not create could be tracked by NOSM scientists.

The study of medical geography, or how the incidence or prevalence of disease changes with location, could also be in the NOSM research mix, as could healthy aging, public health issues, occupational health, toxicology and epidemiology.

At full capacity, there will be about 30 full-time faculty primarily teaching and performing research, and up to 600 associated researchers at NOSM. Research is very collaborative by nature and with information technology where it is today, can be performed from anywhere in the globe.

"It is a spectacular opportunity," beams Ross.

Making the leap from lab to market

Some of the good research to be performed at NOSM could have significant economic impact if it can be commercialized, according to Ross.

Bio-prospecting, or the search for new therapeutic agents, for example, holds significant promise. At NOSM, Ross plans to use technology to screen and cross-reference vast libraries of compounds, literally hundreds of thousands of them, in the search for new medicines for maladies such as hypertension or cancer treatment, as just a pair of examples.

Libraries of flora in area forests, for example, would be very useful to that research stream. And as they work, researchers will be compiling libraries of their own, which could prove to have value to other research organizations, since the scientists will have to know and document where and when the sample was harvested, what plant it is and what properties it possesses.

"It's modern drug discovery," he says. "It's what pharmaceutical companies have been doing. It (the libraries researchers create) could be a great spin-off from an economic development point-of-view."

Gary Polano, project manager, research and innovation, was the general manager of the committee that wrote the business plan for NOSM about three years ago.

From that came a project aimed at exploring the potential for growth in the health research sector in Northern Ontario in terms of economic development.

A sub-committee charged with exploring just that, vis-a-vis the job creation potential of these research and innovation activities, was struck.

A final report is expected near the end of this month.

It will offer recommendations on how to build on the existing health research sector in smaller communities and in larger centres across Northern Ontario.

The sector is ripe for the picking, according to Polano.

SHI Consulting Inc., known for their health-care expertise, has been hired by the school to complete the report and is in the process of compiling the data it contains.

'Phenomenal growth'

"There are some good numbers in terms of the school's impact," Polano continues. "In terms of growth potential, the numbers are quite amazing in direct and indirect (job creation) over the next 10 years."

Adding the potential for research and the federal dollars that will flow into it, Polano says there is room for some "pretty phenomenal job growth."

The federal, provincial and municipal governments from across Northern Ontario funded the study.

One of the research division's objectives is to achieve as wide a geographically distribution of scientific activity as possible.

Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM's founding dean, is hopeful the economic development will follow that scientific activity.

"When a region is looking to attract new industry and economic development, a key question often asked is about the environment the workers in this enterprise will be living in, and health services is usually pretty high on the list," he says. "That's something that is the same in Australia and Northern Ontario. An improved supply of doctors is key to that, but it's not just about doctors. It's about the whole health team, having more health-care providers of all kinds."

www.normed.ca

By CRAIG GILBERT

Northern Ontario Business