Faculty of Medicine

About Dalhousie Medical School

  • Faculty of Medicine Organizational Chart [PDF - 795 KB]

    • Celebrating our Rich History

    Professor Emeritus, former Dean of Medicine, and Canadian Medical Hall of Fame inductee, Dr. Thomas John (Jock) Murray, narrates the history of Dalhousie's Medical School, since 1868 - 50 years after the founding of Dalhousie University.

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Dalhousie Medicine in the Community

See how the medical school and communities connect to improve health and health care in the Maritimes and beyond.

Dalhousie Medical School teaches scientific excellence and humanity in medicine, facilitates leading health research, influences social and health policy, and helps drive the regional economy.

An integral part of Maritime Canada since 1868, Dalhousie Medical School's success has always been linked to our relevance to the communities we serve. While most Maritime doctors earned their MDs at Dalhousie, our well-trained, highly skilled graduates can be found caring for people of all ages throughout Canada and around the world.

Training doctors

Dalhousie Medical School has the most up-to-date medical school curriculum in Canada

  • New, revitalized curriculum emphasizes inter-professional education and distributed learning, including rural experience, community outreach, and a health mentor program
  • 436 medical students are enrolled in the four-year MD program; more than 91 per cent hail from the Maritimes
  • At Dalhousie, medical students are in the hospitals on day one; early clinical experience is something we're known for
  • Currently, over 560 Dalhousie residents and 50 Royal College specialty programs (including 24 subspecialties) train in sites across the region, providing a significant proportion of patient care in health centres
  • Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick - a distributed medical education program based in Saint John was launched in 2010

 

Delivering patient care

Faculty members provide patient care in health centres, clinics, and offices across Maritime Canada and beyond

  • Located in more than 100 teaching sites across the maritimes, 1,768 clinical faculty members and 467 residents play a key role in providing patient care
  • Over 900 family physicians and 550 specialists keep their professional knowledge current through Dalhousie Continuing Medical Education
  • Our clinical teachers draw upon the best experts in every field, translating research and technological advancements—like focused radiation therapy for cancer, decreased transplant rejection, more effective drugs for Alzheimer’s, and prenatal vaccines for whooping cough—to provide the best possible care for our communities

 

Improving health care

Dalhousie Medical School provides invaluable expertise to governments, business and industry leaders, granting agencies, and community partners

  • National and international authorities in their fields, faculty provide health policy expertise to government and others on wide-ranging issues, such as the delivery of emergency care and mental health services
  • Community Health & Epidemiology research helps government and public agencies make policy decisions on such issues as suicide and child and youth injuries
  • The Population Health & Research Unit meets the growing need for health information and data, and lends research support for population health and health services utilization
  • Through the Global Health Office, students, residents, and faculty learn first-hand about health beyond Maritime Canada. The GHO offers educational opportunities in places like Tanzania, Thailand, and The Gambia

 

Conducting research

From neuroscience to vaccinology, cancer research to drug development, Dalhousie Medical School is a major contributor to the world’s medical knowledge

  • Graduate programs in the medical sciences offer hundreds of exciting, varied, and challenging opportunities.
  • 345 medical researchers and 17 collaborative research groups are working on 849 research projects
  • Dalhousie Medical School employs and trains more than 62 post-doctoral fellows annually, attracting some of the most promising minds in medical research
  • Innovative research programs and initiatives like the Canadian Center for Vaccinology and the Brain Repair Centre are leading their fields in Canada and around the world

 

Contributing to the economy

Dalhousie Medical School plays a significant part in the health of our economy

  • Dalhousie Medical School provides 1,200 jobs in the knowledge economy; in the Department of Medicine, just one of our 21 departments, 200 high-quality, knowledge-based jobs result directly from research funding
  • We attract $68 million in research funding to the region and contribute more than $60 million annually to Nova Scotia’s GDP
  • Dalhousie Medical School provides an estimated $5.5 million in tax revenue for Nova Scotia annually
  • The new Life Sciences Research Institute adjoining the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building brings scientists, students, entrepreneurs, and business partners together to take research discoveries to market
  • Working with industry partners, our researchers are developing commercially viable drugs, vaccines, and biomedical devices that will change lives and benefit our Maritime community