2. Northern, Rural and Remote Practice

Northern Ontario spans most of the province’s land area (87%), with several large cities, numerous small towns, Indigenous and Francophone communities spread throughout rural and remote areas. Only 6% of Ontario’s population lives in the North, with two people per square km. This compares to the 14 people per square km in the rest of Ontario.

There are over 90 communities in Northern Ontario that support health professional education. This enables learning to take place in a variety of settings that expose, attract, and recruit future practitioners to work environments in areas of need.

Some Indigenous communities, particularly in Northwestern Ontario, are not accessible by road year round. Depending on the location of your placement and the population you serve, you may be learning and practicing in different and innovative ways, including the use of distance technology.

We highly encourage all of our learners to familiarize themselves with the issues impacting both Francophone Health and Indigenous Health as these are an important part of the social accountability mandate of NOSM University.  In many cases, you will work with one or both of these groups while completing a placement in Northern Ontario. Therefore, reviewing and completing the Francophone Health Learning Resources and Indigenous Health Learning Resources can help inform what you will see and do with your preceptors.  You can review these resources before starting your placement or you can integrate the completion of these resources as a learning objective for your placement. On your end-of placement survey, we will ask which of these resources you were able to review/complete.