Founding Dean of Northern Ontario School of Medicine Reappointed as Dean for a Five-Year Term

Dr. Fred Gilbert, Chair of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) Board of Directors and President of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, is pleased to announce that Dr. Roger Strasser, NOSM’s Founding Dean, has been reappointed for a five-year term as Dean to follow his current term which ends in June 2009.

“Dr. Strasser has worked diligently to transform a Northern Ontario dream into an internationally recognized School of Medicine with a community-engaged model of education,” said Dr. Gilbert. “As we move into the next five years of NOSM’s development under Dean Strasser’s leadership, we look forward to further strengthening of relationships with the universities and the clinical faculty, as well as with people from the Northern Ontario communities ”

Since taking up his current position as NOSM’s Founding Dean in September 2002, Dr. Roger Strasser has assembled a strong administrative team and worked to respond to the unique health-care challenges of Northern Ontario by leading the creation of a medical school with an innovative model of distributed medical education that draws on the commitment, expertise, and generosity of people in communities across the North. Training and graduating physicians and health professionals with a particular understanding of, and affinity for, people in Northern, rural, and remote settings is a key component of the School’s mandate to be socially accountable to the cultural diversity of the region it serves.

Under Dr. Strasser’s leadership, and with each year since the School’s official opening in 2005, there has been increasing recognition of NOSM’s innovative approaches to medical education from medical faculties around the world, and the School is fast becoming a must-see location for their educators to learn about NOSM’s curriculum, model for distributed community-engaged learning, and use of new technology to advance medical education.

Dr. Roger Strasser came to Canada from Australia where he was Professor of Rural Health for Monash University and Head of the Monash University School of Rural Health in, and around, Melbourne. Dr. Strasser has been awarded a number of prestigious awards including: Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners in recognition of his world leadership in the field of rural health; the Louis Ariotti Award for excellence and innovation in rural and remote health in Australia; Fellow of Wonca in recognition of his outstanding service to Wonca and family medicine around the world; the inaugural Small, Rural and Northern Award of Excellence by the Ontario Hospital Association; and, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine Life Fellowship Award for outstanding and meritorious service to Rural and Remote Medicine in Australia.