More than 50 students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine have left on what their institution says is a unique one-month immersion program in remote First Nations communities.

The school, a joint initiative of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and Laurentian University in Sudbury, was started in 2005 to address the shortage of doctors in northern areas.

Pairs of first-year students departed on Sunday to visit communities that don't have full-time doctors and are served by physicians who usually fly in for a few days at a time.

"No other medical school in North America incorporates a required cultural immersion experience into a student's learning," the institution says on its website.

Dan Hunt, vice-dean of academic activities at the medical school, said doctors who plan to work in the North need to be immersed in the communities they will serve.

"Both the aboriginal community and people who study cultural competency tell us to truly understand a culture, one must actually live there for a little while," he said.

Students to join in fishing, hunting and feasting

Students will spend 10 to 12 hours a week in clinical settings such as urgent care wards, after-hours clinics and youth and school programs, the university website said.

They will also spend up to 12 hours, experiencing feasts, hunting, fishing and other community activities.

The students are also expected to keep up with their studies through teleconferencing sessions.

The school is trying to graduate more aboriginal doctors and is focused on training people to work in the North, which means there is special attention to aboriginal needs.

Traditional native healers visit the two campuses, one each at Lakehead and Laurentian, and students can attend a sweat lodge.

Could boost respect for alternate healing methods

James Lamouche, a policy analyst with the National Aboriginal Health Organization, said aboriginal and mainstream views of healing are significantly different, and neither a community visit nor a classroom can properly teach traditional medicine.

"Elders will tell us that the healing is in the land, or it's in the language or it's in the ceremonies they're passing on, and it's not necessarily in a chemical or a treatment," he said.

But the immersion program does have the potential to imbue students with respect for another way to heal, he said.

School tries to reflect cultural makeup of North

The medical school, which began with the 2005-06 academic year, decided to include the immersion month after a community consultation with aboriginal delegates.

A 2005 report from that meeting recommended that "the graduates of this medical school be culturally competent in issues related to aboriginal health" and emphasized "the need to have partnerships with the aboriginal communities."

It ran a pilot program in June 2005 with student volunteers from universities in Ontario and Manitoba.

It recently held interviews with 400 students from all over the north for 56 open spots in the next school year.

It tries to reflect the cultural makeup of northern communities and seeks students who are from the North.

Among the 400 applicants interviewed, 16 per cent are francophone and 5.6 per cent are aboriginal. Women outnumber men by 61 per cent to 39 per cent.