Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here today.
My name is Geneviève Moineau, and I am here on behalf of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada.
Our Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada is the representative of academic medicine in Canada. As the association of our 17 faculties of medicine, we support and facilitate collaboration within our 17 faculties relating to their mandates of health research, medical education, and clinical care, always with a focus on social accountability.
We see ourselves as uniquely positioned to help support and facilitate any work that is done at a federal and pan-Canadian level. As the academic partnership of our faculties of medicine, we provide collective leadership, expertise, and advocacy, with the goal of achieving excellence in education, research, and care for the health of all Canadians.
Our strategic goals are thus: to support our faculties, their faculty members, their staff, and our learners, the medical students and residents; to be a leading national advocate for knowledge regarding academic medicine; to support collaborative initiatives that achieve excellence and innovation in academic medicine; and to integrate all of this for the better health of all Canadians.
We feel strongly about the academic mandate as it relates to social accountability. Again, that is a founding principle of our association.
I have the privilege of practising pediatric emergency medicine.
I work in the emergency room at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, CHEO.
So I have the privilege of working hand in hand, in caring for our most acutely ill children, with all the appropriate health care professionals. The concept of “scope of practice” is something I live day to day in my practice, which I can truly support not only as a leader within the association but as a health care provider as well.
In our work at the association, we really understand, within our mandate to support health research, that our faculties of medicine are the hub of the places where health research is practised and performed. We are a great stimulator of all economic aspects of research as it relates to health. We are the association that oversees accreditation of our medical schools and of continuing medical education with many of the partners who are here at the table with me today as well as with the Canadian Medical Association and
the Collège des médecins du Québec.
It is of note that all of our accreditation work is done at a national level. It is a set of standards and processes that are always done throughout the country. Here is another example in which, although it is supported and funded provincially, we see health truly as a national endeavour.
On the education front, many of you will be aware of the important projects that AFMC has led, our future of medical education in Canada projects. The first is the MD project, in which you will see in the notes provided to you that there were 10 important recommendations that are currently under way.
I would like particularly to note recommendation number 8, to advance inter- and intra-professional practice.