Med school to fuel growth in Northwest.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Thunder Bay, Ontario plans medical school - Brief Article

When the Thunder Bay leaders who lobbied hard for the dual campus for the northern medical school need a glimpse at the future potential of the city, they look no further than across the border to Rochester, Minn.

Rochester is home to the Mayo Clinic, one of the world's most renowned medical institutions. The health-care and research industry built up around the medical centre there has anchored and fuelled that city's growth with a mix of leading-edge mechanical and technology industries.

So when Premier Ernie Eves made good on his promise to grant Thunder Bay and Lakehead University equal status to Sudbury and Laurentian University in the northern medical school development, dual campus supporters had a vision, not only of addressing their chronic doctor shortage, but also keying in on the anticipated spinoff opportunities as a catalyst for economic and social growth.

"We know at the first blush last year Sudbury got an influx of 18 or 19 physicians who, because of the medical school, decided to get in on the ground floor," says Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff, who helped rally forces from the northwestern business, political, academic, medical and First Nations communities to push Queen's Park for the dualcampus model. The construction of the new regional hospital, slated to be operating by summer 2003, has been a real drawing card in physician recruitment.

In the past 18 months, 27 physicians, most of whom are specialists, have relocated to Thunder Bay, and seven more are expected to move there this summer.

The city has already assigned some properties close to the hospital for possible research facility spinoffs, including their new high-tech Innova business park. They fully expect an additional $10 million to $15 million in provincial capital funding for some incremental construction at the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital to accommodate medical students.

Boshcoff says the city expects to begin aggressively promoting Thunder Bay as a health-sciences centre once a new city development and tourism general manager is named within the next month.

The intention is to create a health-sciences cluster duplicating Rochester's success. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, first established in 1863, now employs 18,000 physicians, researchers and health-care administrators. Over the years the city has attracted dozens of high-tech companies, including a major research and development facility for IBM.

Richard Pohler, a Thunder Bay development officer who...