Health Sciences
Health Sciences is essential in attracting new businesses to Thunder Bay. The availability of health, medical research and educational facilities helps make Northern Ontario communities attractive places to live and work.
Northern Ontario has 41 hospitals, 68 long-term health care homes, 2 regional cancer centres, 5 community health centres and 2 Local Health Integration Networks. There are also, 6 Aboriginal Health Access Centres operating in communities across the north. These centres offer culturally appropriate primary care to Aboriginal families and individuals. In addition to these, there are 3 telemedicine networks offering over 70 specialties and sub-specialties through a number of programs, including cardiology, dermatology and mental health services.
In response to the shortage of physicians and geographic/distance challenges, northern health facilities have embraced innovative approaches in telemedicine and the delivery of health care such as integrated teleradiology/digital imaging; mobile screening and diagnostic equipment; and pan-northern telemedicine initiatives offer solutions to many challenges that face Northern Ontario.
There are partnership opportunities available through the hospitals, the telecommunications industry and post-secondary institutions with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine playing a central role.
Biotechnology has expanded rapidly in the last decade, resulting from industry-wide revenues, the launch of new companies, and continued diversification. Biotechnology is a growing sector in Northern Ontario. This growth is a reflection of Thunder Bay’s leading-edge research, an entrepreneurial approach that emphasizes clusters and partnerships, and an established financing and venture capital base.
The results of this approach render the possibility of new drug development and a deeper, molecular understanding of the mechanisms of underlying disease. This lays the foundation of all medical application, diagnosis and treatment.
The Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM)
NOSM is a pioneering faculty of medicine. A medical school for the whole of Northern Ontario, the School is a joint initiative of Lakehead University and Laurentian University with main campuses in Thunder Bay and Sudbury, and multiple teaching and research sites distributed across Northern Ontario. By educating skilled physicians and undertaking health research suited to community needs, NOSM will become a cornerstone of community health care and contribute to improving the health of people in Northern Ontario.
NOSM is unique in a number of ways. When the School welcomed its first students in September 2005, it became the first new medical school in Canada in over 30 years, and only the second new medical school in North America during a similar period. It is the first Canadian medical school hosted by two universities, some 1200 kilometers apart. The first medical school in Canada to be opened during the Digital Age, NOSM’s four-year Undergraduate Medical Education e-curriculum emphasizes the use of broadband technology to bridge the distance between campuses, and to facilitate an extensive distributed learning model that is unique in modern medical education.
NOSM is committed to engaging Northerners in the education process. By the time the MD program is completed, the average NOSM student will have spent nearly forty per cent of his or her time studying in Aboriginal, small rural and larger urban Northern Ontario communities.
A medical school like no other, Northern Ontario School of Medicine has a strong emphasis on the special features of Northern Ontario. These include a diversity of cultures and geographical locations; varying illness, injury and health status patterns with their specific clinical challenges; a wide range of health service delivery models which emphasize supporting local health care and interdisciplinary teamwork; and the personal and professional challenges, rewards and satisfactions of medical practice in Northern and rural environments. For more information on NOSM please visit their website www.normed.ca.
Regional Cancer Care
Thunder Bay’s cancer care is world class. We continue to lead Ontario in cancer treatment, diagnostic, and surgical wait times areas and is rated highly in Canada for overall patient satisfaction. Our cancer care services span the northern region, with prevention, screening, diagnostics, education, in-patient and out-patient treatment, surgical treatment, and supportive and palliative care.
Thunder Bay has gained international recognition in the rapidly growing biotechnology sector and has established relationships with experts in fields that will aid in the development of Biomarker Discovery Platform, the multi-application molecular screening technology for the identification of cancer biomarkers.
For more information on Regional Cancer Care please visit their website www.tbrhsc.net.
Diagnostic CT Imaging
Thunder Bay was the first in Canada to acquire the world’s first intelligent SPECT technology, the Siemens Symbia T16 SPECT/CT nuclear medicine camera. With diagnostic CT image quality for attenuation correction & calcium scoring and precise localization in cardiology, oncology & general imaging; you can get more information from the heart in 5 minutes than you’d get with a conventional SPECT in 20 minutes. Within cardiology, myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging has emerged as an efficient tool in evaluating patients with known and suspected coronary artery disease (CAD), allowing physicians to determine both morphology and physiology in one imaging session. The new unit reduces the amount of time to diagnose a specific problem, allowing physicians to pinpoint exactly what the problem is.
For more information on The Regional Health Sciences Centre please visit their website www.tbrhsc.net.
DNA
Thunder Bay is home to the only privately-run company in Canada that is accredited to perform Mt-DNA testing. Many labs offer nuclear DNA testing which use samples such as blood, skin or mouth swabs. Mt-DNA can determine identity, ethnicity, and genealogical relationships from a wide range of biological materials including blood, saliva, bone, teeth and shed hair.
Thunder Bay is a leader in mitochondrial DNA research. By continually improving the methodology, sensitivity and detection methods for DNA examination can be applied to Forensic DNA analysis. The Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University include services both to nuclear (STR and Y-STR) and mitochondrial DNA analysis on a variety of sample types. With our expertise in the ancient DNA field, we have developed many protocols to aid in the extraction, purification and amplification of DNA from highly degraded materials. They are the only facility in the world that offers a training program in extraction, amplification, sequencing and analysis of ancient nucleic acids (aDNA).
For more information on Health Sciences please contact:
Ian Sgambelluri
Development Officer
| Tel: | (807) 625-3965 |
| Email: | isgambelluri@thunderbay.ca |
Sector/area of expertise: Energy, Research and Innovation, Health and Education
