{"id":174588,"date":"2025-09-28T04:35:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174588\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T04:35:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:35:33","slug":"why-a-new-medical-school-in-ontario-is-focusing-on-culturally-sensitive-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174588\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a new medical school in Ontario is focusing on culturally sensitive care"},"content":{"rendered":"

White Coat Black Art26:29The doctor Brampton needs<\/p>\n

Click here to read the story in Punjabi.<\/a><\/p>\n

A new medical school in Brampton, Ont., has started training a new generation of family physicians to address a major doctor shortage in Canada,\u00a0but educators\u00a0hope they will also better reflect the people they’re helping.<\/p>\n

The idea behind Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine\u00a0is\u00a0to train doctors who know more about their patients \u2014 from language, to culture and even traditional diets \u2014 so they can better serve their health needs without worrying about that advice getting lost in translation.<\/p>\n

“It’s so exciting to be able to do something I’m so passionate about and do it in the city that I’ve grown up in,” Gurleen Kaur Chahal of Brampton, one of the school’s first-year medical students<\/a>, told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman.<\/p>\n

Chahal, 25,\u00a0is hoping to make it easier for families like hers to navigate the health-care system in Canada \u2014 one that “still honours and respects their dignity” and their cultural background.<\/p>\n

According to TMU<\/a>, this is the first new medical school\u00a0to open in the Greater Toronto Area in over 100 years. Of the 6,400 undergrad students who applied to the school, just 94 were accepted, said Dr. Teresa Chan, the school’s dean.<\/p>\n

All of the students are Canadian and most are from Ontario, with the hope that many will choose to work in the surrounding area. Just over 100 medical residents also began training at the school in the summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brampton is one of Canada’s most diverse<\/a> and fastest growing cities. But it’s significantly under-resourced when it comes to health care.<\/p>\n

\"AFrom left, Inderjit Singh Chahal, daughter Gurleen Kaur Chahal and her mother Sukhbinder Kaur Chahal. (Brian Goldman\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The Ontario College of Family Physicians expects the number of people without a family doctor in Peel region alone \u2014 which includes Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon \u2014 to reach 430,000 by next year.<\/p>\n

Chan says\u00a0many medical school students and residents often have “a lot of allegiance to the community in which they train,” which can be cultivated further when community members “really cheer them on.”<\/p>\n

“We’re hoping that a lot of them will stay, and the evidence has panned out that most places you know, where you train for residency is where you stay,” she said.<\/p>\n

This has worked in other parts of the province. According to a 2024 report from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), more than half of their graduates since the first cohort in 2009 are\u00a0practicing\u00a0in Northern Ontario<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Health care navigators<\/p>\n

That’s the kind of path Chahal sees herself following. Starting at an early age, she had to help her South Asian immigrant family navigate the health-care system.<\/p>\n

“It was taking them to the family physician or any doctor and just translating the symptoms that they were experiencing, or if my parents got a report from the doctor, taking the time to \u2026 kind of explain them in a way that they would understand best,” said Chahal, whose parents and grandparents speak Punjabi and have varying fluency with English.<\/p>\n

While they may be generally comfortable with English as a second language, family members might need someone more fluent like Chahal to explain a doctor’s technical or nuanced medical advice, says\u00a0Chahal’s mother, Sukhbinder Kaur Chahal.<\/p>\n

“Gurleen or someone has to go with them to explain to them what they need [for] medication, and what the doctor’s saying needs to be translated. So they need someone with them all the time.”<\/p>\n

WATCH | Dean Teresa Chan gave a\u00a0tour of the school while it was under construction:\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

A first look at Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s new school of medicine <\/p>\n

Toronto Metropolitan University is gearing up to open its new school of medicine this year. CBC\u2019s Britnei Bilhete got an early tour of the facility to learn more.<\/p>\n

Samah Osman, another first-year student at the school, had similar experiences growing up in London, Ont., after she and her family came to Canada as refugees from Sudan.<\/p>\n

“It’s not ideal to have a child interpreting for a parent, because even though I spoke English, like, obviously I’m not a medical professional or a clinician, and so, you can always worry about the type of interpretation that’s happening.”<\/p>\n

Cultural understanding<\/p>\n

That role of family translator is also\u00a0more than simply reading out a prescription form.<\/p>\n

One of the most common discussions that comes up between a patient and family doctor \u2014 diet \u2014 might have the most potential cultural pitfalls.<\/p>\n

If a doctor tells a patient to eat more red meat, but that person doesn’t eat beef because of their religious beliefs, it could create tension.<\/p>\n

\"Media,Media and some officials attend the opening of the Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine in Brampton, Ont., earlier this month. (Colleen Ross\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“If I go to an Indian doctor who knows my diet, who knows the culture, he would tell me, ‘OK,\u00a0instead of red meat or instead of meat, have tofu, have paneer, have cheese.’ Something that he would know that we have on a daily basis,” said Sukhbinder Kaur Chahal.<\/p>\n

WATCH | TMU welcomes its first class of medical students:\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

TMU gearing up to welcome 1st class at new Brampton medical school<\/p>\n

Toronto Metropolitan University will welcome its first class of medical students in their new school in Brampton Tuesday. The school aims to address the shortage of primary care doctors in the region.<\/p>\n

Cultural gaps can have traumatic potential, as well.<\/p>\n

Goldman recalled an earlier moment in his career\u00a0where he had to tell a young grandchild that their grandparent had cancer, because the younger family member was the only one present who spoke English.<\/p>\n

“It’s awkward and cruel and it’s something that shouldn’t be done,” Goldman said.<\/p>\n

Lack of cultural sensitivity can lead to events like last year, when Brampton hospital workers shaved a Sikh man’s beard without his consent<\/a>, in violation of his religious\u00a0beliefs.\u00a0Ontario health system leaders apologized and pledged action to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.<\/p>\n

Relevance beyond Ontario<\/p>\n

In a statement to CBC\u00a0News, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) underscored the importance of community-based family medicine to help address the more than six million Canadians who don’t have access to a family doctor, who provide “more than half of all medical care” in the country.<\/p>\n

Dr. Nancy Fowler, the CFPC’s executive director for academic family medicine, says\u00a0residency training programs across the country prepare doctors to meet patient\u00a0needs, “including attention to equity, diversity, inclusion\u00a0and accessibility and Indigenous health.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Arun Garg, the program medical director for South Asian Health Institute at Fraser Health in B.C., says before TMU’s new school, he’d never seen a medical school with such a strong focus on\u00a0fostering culturally sensitive care.<\/p>\n

“It makes a lot of sense,” he said. “I think it’s really needed.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Throughout\u00a0his career, Garg has worked to highlight the need\u00a0for culturally sensitive care \u2014 particularly how chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension were higher in South Asians, who make up\u00a0a large part of B.C.’s population.<\/p>\n

The work begins<\/p>\n

At the school’s\u00a0opening ceremony earlier this month, Chahal confessed that while the high expectations she and her classmates face are somewhat nerve-racking, the support from family and friends\u00a0reinforces how important the work really is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I feel like just trying to live in the moment and enjoy all of these new experiences,” she said. “But I mean, ask me when I’m writing my first exam and my answer will probably be different.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White Coat Black Art26:29The doctor Brampton needs Click here to read the story in Punjabi. A new medical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-174588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}