More medical students will be trained in Sarnia-Lambton thanks to a new partnership.
Bluewater Health and London's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry will allow third year medical school students to have the opportunity to complete their full clerkship training at Bluewater Health.
Starting in the fall of 2025, eight more MD students will complete most of their clerkship training in Sarnia and Petrolia.
Chief of Staff, Dr. Michel Haddad said the students will now spend a whole year in Sarnia-Lambton.
"This gives them more exposure to both hospital and community clinics and the community at large. They would live here for the year, hopefully for two years, in hopes that in the future that many of them would be more interested in coming back to practice with us," he said.
Over the two years students will gain experience on rotations including Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Surgery, Internal Medicine, Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Currently, the program Bluewater Health has is a short term rotation, where students are in Sarnia-Lambton healthcare settings for a few weeks at a time.
"I think it's very promising that we will basically increase the number of medical learners in the community and I'm hoping as the word spreads and hopefully everyone has a great experience and that will attract more people as well," he said.
Haddad added the hope is when the medical students look for their residency placement, they will return to Sarnia-Lambton.
He said while the program starts in the fall it has been in the works for quite some time.
"It has been in the works for five, six years. It takes time to do this," said Haddad. "I'm excited there's a lot of interest on the medical student side of the equation in London and Windsor."
Haddad also said the hope is to have more medical students down the road.
"(We hope) to build upon this to have even more both medical students and residents trained locally in hopes that we replenish the physicians here and both fill the gaps and deal with any upcoming retirements in the future," he said.
In anticipation of the partnership, medical students are being invited to Bluewater Health to meet with staff, learn about the program and to tour the facility.