By: Hannah Fraser, News Writer
On July 9, BC Premier David Eby announced that the new SFU medical school in Surrey will receive another $33.7 million to renovate an “interim space at an existing building” at SFU Surrey. This is on top of the $27 million in operational funding and $14 million in startup costs SFU has already received from the government.
The announcement comes after Dr. David J. Price was appointed as the medical school’s founding dean the week before. Price is a “practicing family physician and professor in the department of family medicine at McMaster University, where he served as department chair for 15 years until 2021.” The school was approved by SFU in May and expects to accept its first cohort in 2026.
The Peak interviewed Dr. Maria Hubinette, vice-president academic for the medical school. She said the medical school would start by holding classes in interim spaces in the SFU Surrey C and E Buildings. Hubinette doesn’t anticipate this will limit the space for existing SFU Surrey students to take classes. Classes will be held in these buildings before the new medical school’s building is finished and ready to open for classes in 2029.
While all other medical programs in Canada are four years, SFU’s medical school program will span three years. Hubinette said this structure will allow students to have the same instructional time as the regular four-year program while joining the workforce sooner.
“We’re trying to think about what healthcare is going to look like in the future and not only what it looks like right now.” — Maria Hubinette, acting associate dean for SFU medical school
The school’s partnership with the First Nations Health Authority and Fraser Health Authority has helped the team plan for “clinical learning sites.” Hubinette said the school is committed to incorporating Indigenous Ways of Knowing into the classes and program as a way of “questioning the way that things have always been done.” Indigenous Ways of Knowing “help educate people about the vast variety of knowledge that exists across diverse Indigenous communities.”
Hubinette mentioned the program will be community engaged, with “structured learning experiences” to understand the “broader determinants of health that you don’t see when you’re only in a doctor’s office,” such as income, social status, physical environment, and access to health services.
“We’re trying to think about what healthcare is going to look like in the future and not only what it looks like right now, so we’re thinking a little bit about how to set ourselves up to be more transformative and how to future-proof what we’re doing.”
Details about admissions are expected to be released in fall 2025. The school is still waiting on accreditation with the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS), which will permit them to advertise the program and open admissions. According to CACMS, accreditation involves institutions “voluntarily undergo an extensive peer evaluation” in which the CACMS judges if they meet the “national standards for educational quality.”
“We’re really, really excited to get going on more details,” said Hubinette. Premier Eby said SFU’s medical school will be the “first new medical school in Western Canada in 55 years and aims to address the province’s ongoing doctor shortage by adding more family doctors.”
