McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences

McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences 43°15′34″N 79°55′03″W / 43.25937°N 79.917566°W / 43.25937; -79.917566
Established	1974
Dean	Dr. John G. Kelton
Students	5,000
Location	Hamilton , ON , Canada
Website	Faculty of Health Sciences

The McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences is one of six faculties at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The faculty was established in 1974 to oversee the School of Nursing, the School of Medicine, and Graduate programs in health sciences. Today, the Faculty of Health Sciences oversees 5,000 students, 770 full-time faculty, more than 1,800 part-time faculty, and 26 Canada Research Chairs.^[1]

History

University Health Sciences Centre

The McMaster University Health Sciences Centre opened in 1972 to provide health care in Hamilton’s growing west end. The building houses the McMaster Children's Hospital, the second largest children’s hospital in the province. In 1979, the Health Sciences Centre amalgamated with Chedoke Hospitals to become Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals.

Today

Programs

The faculty currently houses the following programs:

• Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine
• School of Nursing
• School of Rehabilitation Science
• Midwifery Education Program
• Physician Assistant Education Program
• Bachelor of Health Sciences
• Graduate Program in Biochemistry
• Graduate Program in Medical Sciences
• Graduate Program in Global Health
• Graduate Program in Health Management
• Graduate Program in Neuroscience
• Health Policy PhD Program^[2]

Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery

The Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery is a $71 million building that houses more than 250 scientists, and has put Canada on the international research map for the discovery of new medicines in breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, West Nile Virus, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, SARS, and other life-threatening and disabling diseases.^[3] The discovery complex includes the following centres:

• Centre for Function Genomics
• Centre for Gene Therapeutics
• Institute for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Research
• Robert E. Fitzhenry Vector Laboratory
• Centre for Asthma and Allergy Research (Allergen)
• North American Headquarters for West Nile studies^[4]

The discovery complex includes one of only three robotic microscopes in the world that are able to make one million measurements in reading cellular responses to drugs and other stimuli.^[5]

The building is the home to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and includes lecture halls, state-of-the-art classrooms with videoconferencing technology across the Waterloo and Niagara campuses of the School of Medicine, space for intensive care units for the Hamilton Health Sciences, as well as a three-story atrium and winter garden.^[6]

Ranking

In 2008, according to the Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT), McMaster is ranked 48th in the world for scientific papers in clinical medicine.^[7]

Affiliated Hospitals

In 1997, Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals amalgamated with Hamilton Civic Hospitals to form Hamilton Health Sciences. Today, the faculty is affiliated with eight teaching hospitals.

• Hamilton Health Sciences
• Chedoke Hospital
• McMaster Children's Hospital
• Hamilton General Hospital
• Henderson Hospital
• McMaster Medical Centre
• Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre
• St. Joseph's Healthcare
• St. Peter's Health System

Norfolk General Hospital became an official teaching site in 2009.^[8]

Medical School

The Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine receives twice the number of applications than other medical programs in Canada, with more than 4,500 applicants competing for 204 positions.^[9] McMaster currently has more than 500 medical students and more than 700 residents working in 44 specialties. The school now operates in three campuses; the main campus in Hamilton, and two satellite campuses in Waterloo and Niagara. The Waterloo Regional Campus is in the Downtown Kitchener Health Sciences Campus of the University of Waterloo. The Niagara Regional Campus will be moving to the Brock University campus in 2011. Medical students rotate through larger teaching hospitals and smaller community hospitals from Brampton through Brantford and Niagara Falls. The Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine has gained international recognition for groundbreaking medical and health science research. For five years in a row, McMaster has ranked second in Canada for biomedical and health care research revenues. In 2008-2009, Faculty investigators were overseeing $133 million a year in research, much of that research conducted by scientists and physicians who teach in the medical school.^[10]

Educational Influence

The medical school is a pioneer in its teaching and admissions philosophies through the Program for Educational Research and Development, renowned internationally for grounding educational practice in evidence.^[11] McMaster created a revolution in health care training by pioneering the problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum, which has since influenced health care education worldwide. The instructional strategy focuses on student-driven learning, which occurs in groups, to foster critical thinking, higher retention, and stronger cognitive competencies including coping with uncertainty and communication skills. Most medical schools in Canada and more than 80% of medical schools in the United States now employ PBL in their curriculum, and many international universities are continuing to do to the same.^[12]

In the early 1990s, the School of Medicine developed the personal progress index (PPI) as an objective method for assessing acquisition and retention of knowledge for students in the medical program. The PPI is administered at routine intervals to all students in the program, regardless of their level of training, and plots students' increases in scores as they move through the program. Students typically score under 15% on their first write, and increase 5-7% with each successive write. Students are able to monitor the changes in their scores and receive formative feedback based on a standardized score relative to the class mean. Due to the overwhelming success and research supporting the use of the PPI as an evaluation tool, it is now used in Canada, US, Europe, and Australia.^[13]

In 2004, McMaster developed the multiple-mini interview to address long standing concerns over the standard panel interviews as being poor reflectors of performance in medical school.^[14] This format uses short, independent assessments in a timed circuit to obtain aggregate scores in interpersonal skills, professionalism, ethical/moral judgment, and critical thinking to assess candidates. The MMI has consistently shown to have a higher predictive validity for future performance than traditional interviews.^[15] By 2008, the MMI was being used as an admissions test for the majority of medical schools in Canada, Australia, and Israel, as well as other medical schools in the United States and Asia.

In 2010, McMaster began using a computer-based simulated test as an admissions tool at the pre-interview stage. This is an assessment of interpersonal and decision-making skills that is more reliable, and predicts much more validity than standard autobiographical submissions. The test several involves video clips lasting 1-2 minutes in length, prompted by situational challenges and self-descriptive questions.^[16]

Statistics

• The Undergraduate Medical Program for the MD degree was initiated in 1969, graduating its first students in May 1972. At present, 203 students are admitted to the program each year.
• The Faculty oversees more than $108.3 million in medical research a year, with a growth of 27% in the past year.
• Innovative medical discoveries have included the recent developments towards a SARS vaccine.
• McMaster has developed evidence-based medicine in Canada, and has the largest department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics in Canada.
• McMaster is home of the Canadian Cochrane Centre, which produces a collection of high quality evidence-based healthcare databases that is regarded as the world’s most comprehensive source of evidence-based healthcare information.
• McMaster's highly selective MD Program is renowned for being the birthplace of Problem Based Learning. In 2009, there were approximately 3,800 applicants for the 203 seats.
• McMaster's BHSc (Honours) Program is a highly selective program based on a tenets of inquiry and problem-based learning.

Notes and references

External links

• Tour of the Faculty of Health Sciences
• Evidence Based Medicine - British Medical Journal