On November 6th, we celebrated the groundbreaking for a new building at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC). Historically, events on U of T’s eastern campus had little impact on the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Programs at UTSC focused on arts, science and business. While UTSC has prepared many stellar students who would pursue further studies at Temerty Medicine over the years, there was relatively little interaction between their programs and ours. However, that is changing.
The building that broke ground will be the new home of the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH). Scheduled to open in the fall of 2026, it will house new sites for Temerty Medicine’s MD and physical therapy programs at UTSC. Our Physician Assistant program will also relocate to SAMIH. We will be joined there by the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing’s Nurse Practitioner (NP) Program, as well as public-facing health-care clinics, including an NP-led clinic, a pharmacy and a clinical psychology clinic. In addition to health professional programs, the building will house classrooms, labs, and offices for UTSC’s Department of Health and Society, the Department of Psychology, and the Graduate Department of Psychological Clinical Science. The result will be a vibrant, interdisciplinary, and dynamic academic environment that will prepare and support students in their undergraduate studies and into professional and graduate programs.
The establishment of SAMIH is the result of years of planning and consultations within U of T, among our hospital partners, and with community organizations. It is a response to several imperatives. First, it allows U of T to fulfill its ambition to situate health professional training on all three campuses. It will enable Temerty Medicine to expand on the lessons gained when we established the Mississauga Academy of Medicine (MAM) at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), which is now home to an academy of our MD Program and a site for our Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science Program. It also recognizes related strengths at UTSC, which is capitalizing on its long-established expertise in relevant areas in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities by establishing the Institute for Inclusive Health and Well-Being. The Institute will focus on interdisciplinary dialogues about planetary health, what is needed for inclusive health and well-being, and research on health assessments and health-care delivery for equity-deserving groups.
Secondly, it allows us to support the underserved communities of Scarborough and the Eastern Greater Toronto Area. Currently, the Scarborough area has the second-lowest number of family physicians per capita in Ontario and the third-lowest number of specialists. More than 90,000 residents in Scarborough — 11.5 per cent of the population — do not have a primary care provider. At the Scarborough Health Network, 22 per cent of emergency department visits are made by individuals who lack a primary care provider. Residents in Scarborough also face higher rates of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and mental health challenges, compared to other areas in Toronto.
We know location matters when training and retaining health professionals in underserved areas. In the first nine years since we launched MAM, we saw the number of active specialists practicing in the former Mississauga-Halton Local Health Integration Network who trained at U of T grow by 154 per cent. At the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University, 94 per cent of their MD and residency graduates practice in Northern Ontario — one-third of whom work in remote, rural communities. In comparison, only 5 per cent of new physicians recruited to Northern Ontario are from other schools.
There is a direct link between the students we train in our classrooms and the health-care providers available to care for patients and serve regions across this province. SAMIH allows us to expand the health professional workforce needed to provide greater access to care, reduce wait times, and create and sustain healthier communities. And, by situating ourselves in Scarborough, enriched by its diversity, we can deepen the necessary work that ensures we better work with and reflect the communities we serve.
While I didn’t grow up in Scarborough, I grew up just up the road in Stouffville. When I visited Scarborough as a child, I thought I was visiting the “Big City.” I haven’t lived the experience of being someone from Scarborough, but I see the challenges, inspiring me to act. We cannot achieve health equity if we are not focused on being inclusive as to who will provide the care. And we cannot expand our workforce without creating new pathways to education and training. SAMIH provides us with a unique opportunity to better serve our patients by listening to, learning from, and engaging in partnerships with the communities we serve. It’s an imperative we cannot ignore.
Patricia Houston
Interim Dean and Interim Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions
Vice Dean, Medical Education
Temerty Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto
