Hamilton Public Lecture Series

'How Rural Medical Education Improves Health Care for All' - by Professor Roger Strasser

In this public lecture Professor Roger Strasser will speak about how rural medical education can improve health care in New Zealand, using his experience from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine where he was founding dean and later CEO between 2002 and 2019.

For the past 100 years training in medical schools around the world has largely followed the Flexner model of medical education where students spend the first half of their training studying science and medicine at their chosen university and the second half of their training in a teaching hospital, generally in a main centre.

New Zealand’s model of medical education has followed this same path, despite an increasing number of vulnerable populations in our rural areas and within our Maori and Pacifica communities.

While New Zealand has worked towards placing medical students in rural settings, the numbers remain small and they often do not stay on, compounding these community’s poor health care outcomes. In 2020 only about 20 percent of the New Zealand’s medical graduates, who started study in 2014, entered general practice.

In Canada when the figure of medical graduates entering general practice reached 25 percent the red flags went up and there was intervention by the Canadian Government to correct the decline.

Professor Strasser’s work at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine showed the impact of the establishment of the rural medical school. 95 percent of NOSM MD graduates chose generalist medical careers, and 94 percent of the doctors who completed both undergraduate and postgraduate training in Northern Ontario are practising in the region. In addition, there has been substantial economic impact and social impact in this previously socially and economically under-resourced region.

Professor Strasser says it is an example New Zealand can learn from.

This 35-minute public lecture will be held at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, starting at 5.45pm. Opus Bar will be open from 5pm for anyone who wishes to purchase refreshments prior to the lecture starting. Free parking is available on campus via Gate 2B, Knighton Road, Hamilton.

As this is a ticketed event, please visit the University of Waikato website, visit the Hamilton Public Lecture 2021 page, register and bring your eticket with you on the evening to be scanned.