Education

From Class Room to Court Room: HCTP Research Mentorship Pays Off

Wynberg v Ontario is $75 M lawsuit over the discriminatory treatment of children with autism. Currently the province funds behavioral therapy for only one third of autistic children. When a parent told HPME Professor Peter Coyte about the case, he encouraged MSc students Sanober Motiwala, Shamali Wickremaarachi, and Meredith Lilly to evaluate the long-term cost-effectiveness of expanding therapy to all autistic children as coursework for Health Economics HAD 5730 .The research was onerous, as data were difficult to access and because outcomes from the therapy were controversial. But the students' hard work paid off when the analysis reflected a potential cost saving of $172,549,472 associated with full expansion of the therapy!

After submission of the term paper, a different type of learning exercise took place, as Coyte and Wendy Ungar mentored the students to restructure the paper for legal decision-making and for publication. In April 2003, the research was submitted to both parties for review. In September, the study was entered as evidence in Wynberg v. Ontario on September 17, 2003. The paper is currently under review for scholarly publication. In January 2004, the Ministry of Community and Social Services disclosed additional information about current service provision of Ontario. The students and Coyte have been commissioned by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to analyse these new data for the trial.

In this project, research mentorship transformed a classroom exercise into a real-world contribution, with significant legal, social, economic, and health ramifications. HPME students were educated about the role of the courts as an important forum for effecting health policy change and knowledge uptake, and relevant and timely knowledge with direct implications for decision-making was generated about the costs and consequences of health services in Ontario. The student team, reports Coyte, has done "a better job than anybody else of assessing the pros and cons of expansion of autism services … definitely better than anything ever done in Canada and much more scholarly than anywhere else in the world."

David Zakus To Be President of the International Health Medical Education Consortium

Associate Professor David Zakus of the Departments of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation; and Public Health Sciences; and Director of the Centre for International Health, will be the first Canadian to hold the position of President of the International Health Medical Education Consortium (IHMEC). IHMEC is a consortium of 86 US and Canadian medical schools and residency programs and includes faculty and health care educators dedicated to international health medical education. Formed in 1991, its mission is to foster international health medical education in four program areas - curriculum, clinical training, career development, and international education policy. Dr. Zakus is currently serving as President-elect, and will assume Presidency in February 2005. The 14th annual IHMED conference will be held in Toronto in 2005.

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