About AFMC

History

During the Second World War, the Canadian government asked the country's medical schools to accelerate their programs to increase the number of graduates to meet wartime requirements. The schools' deans met to consider this request in 1942 and 1943 and agreed there were other matters in need of their collective attention, such as medical school admission requirements and the rigidity of curricula. Therefore, in April 1943, they decided to form the national Association of Canadian Medical Colleges; the first annual meeting of the new organization was held that August.

The accelerated medical school program continued for the rest of the war. During the postwar years, the schools devoted much time and energy to integrating returning medical officers into civilian medical practice and coping with the influx of veterans, who comprised up to 25 per cent of entering classes. Postwar demands on the schools also focused attention on the need for nationwide planning and action, and the association became the repository for data on student applications and admissions.

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the association grew in importance. In 1946, the Canadian Medical Association invited it to name a delegate to its council; in 1956, it sent a deputation to a meeting with several federal ministers to discuss the impact of a national health plan on medical education and on the support of medical research in Canada; and in 1962, as a result of the association's influence, the government formed a subcommittee of the Hall Commission on National Health to study the needs of medical education.

As it grew, the association could no longer be run on a part-time, semi-informal basis. In 1959, representatives of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Canadian Medical Association met with the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges to consider organizing a Canadian medical education secretariat. The Kellogg Foundation provided a five-year grant to the secretariat to appoint a physician executive secretary and to conduct studies of medical school programs and their needs. As a condition of the grant, the association was incorporated in October 1961.

Following incorporation, the association established a program of national statistical studies in medical education. It also began publishing a newsletter for the association, which would evolve over the years from a dozen mimeographed sheets written by the president to the bilingual FORUM.

The association took over the Canadian Intern Placement Service from the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns in the 1960s, re-launching it as the Canadian Intern Matching Service. In 1985, the service was expanded to include not only first-year interns but also those entering residency programs. Since then it has continued to expand to meet changing needs, such as two-year prelicensure training requirements and in 1994, broke off from the association and became the independent Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS).

In 1979, the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools was established. Up to that time medical schools in Canada were accredited by the U.S.-based Liaison Committee on Medical Education. With the advent of medicare, the medical education system in Canada was geared to meet social requirements that were significantly different from those in the United States. While designed to take these social requirements into account, the accreditation committee still adopted many procedures from its American counterpart and was established in such a way that Canadian schools receive accreditation from both bodies.

The association met the need for information to identify educational, training and practice trends for planning and to serve as an early warning of manpower deficiencies and surpluses by establishing the Canadian Post-M.D. Education Registry (CAPER) in 1986. Combined with the medical education statistics gathered by the Office of Research and Information Services (ORIS), AFMC has the capacity to provide longitudinal tracking of each medical student in Canada from the day of admission to medical school throughout his or her career.

In 2004, the association welcomed its first new member in more than 30 years, when the Northern Ontario School of Medicine opened. That same year, it changed its English name to the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) to modernize and establish a clearer identity. In 2007, AFMC enhanced its corporate brand with a new logo and website design and changed its newsletter title from FORUM to Gravitas.

Extracted from The Association of Canadian Medical Colleges and how it grew (PDF) by Dr. Douglas Waugh.