As part of Scarborough Health Network (SHN)’s expansion of education through our partnership with the University of Toronto on the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH), we will be taking on a growing number of learners for their clinical training, starting with the expansion of our medical students in the 2025-26 academic year. For the first time at SHN, we will have core medical learners rotating through every clinical department at our hospital!
Not familiar with SAMIH?
The University of Toronto is opening the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH) at their Scarborough campus, with SHN as a key hospital partner in providing training to those students. Learn more HERE.
To get our facilities ready, big changes are coming to spaces across our organization, and we couldn’t be more excited to share them with you!
“This initiative involves adapting existing infrastructure to accommodate the growing scope of teaching and learning activities,” shared Sasha Singh, SHN Director of Education. “The new spaces will include learner lounges, teaching and seminar spaces, on-call rooms, locker rooms, and wellness spaces, as well as clinical exam rooms, classrooms, and increased spaces for education administration. Embedding these learner spaces into our clinical areas enables us to actively treat and teach on the wards, and will further cement education into the foundations of everything we do here at SHN.”
While we work with the University of Toronto towards the opening of the medical school component of SAMIH – the Scarborough Academy of Medicine (SAM), we are preparing to welcome a larger cohort of medical students this September. These newly-designed and redeveloped spaces will be ready to support them as part of this first phase of medical education expansion.
Our Facilities Planning and Education teams launched this redevelopment project last summer as a key priority of our Education Strategy 2024-29. Thanks to their hard work this ambitious development has moved from blueprint to reality at an incredible pace, with the project moving to start construction in the coming weeks once all contracts have been awarded through our competitive tendering process.
“My team is incredibly enthusiastic about having this project underway because we can draw a direct line from the planning work we have done to the impact this will have to our organization’s ability to provide care,” remarked Ralph Aprile, SHN Director of Construction in the Facilities Planning & Redevelopment department. “By establishing the facilities needed to grow education, we are creating the conditions to reap long-term benefits from retaining learners who complete their practical experience at our hospitals – the train here, work here mold for bringing in new talent. This initiative is one of the best things that could happen to our organization.”
New learner hubs and clinical teaching spaces will be created across our Centenary, General, and Birchmount hospitals – blending education directly into the flow of patient care. These changes reflect a bold, long-term commitment to transforming SHN into a leading academic health network.
“With this redevelopment project, we are not just building spaces – we are building a legacy for education at our health network and throughout Scarborough,” said Dr. Caroline Chan, SHN Academy Director for SAM. “This is an exciting step towards shaping the future of healthcare, which would not be possible without our many physicians who have stepped up to serve as faculty members, as well as clinical and corporate support teams who share in the commitment to expanding our capacity for training the next generation of healthcare professionals.”
Stay tuned for more updates as we pave the way for a new era of education at SHN. Have questions? Reach out to MedicalEducation@shn.ca.