By: Marie Jen Galilo, Staff Writer
On June 5, SFU’s medical school was renamed the SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine to thank the Stephens family for their $40 million donation to the institution. According to SFU, Ratana and Arran Stephens are the co-founders of the breakfast company Nature’s Path and “longtime philanthropists.” This is their largest donation to date.
To learn more about SFU’s medical school, The Peak spoke with Dr. David J. Price, the founding dean.
After years of planning and preparation, SFU’s medical school will be welcoming its first cohort of 48 students in August 2026. Price said, “There’s no end of challenges in starting a school from scratch,” including designing the curriculum and recruiting and training instructors. Despite these challenges, Price shared, “We’re pretty much good to go.” He added, the institution’s interim space is now “99% finished,” and clinical teachers have been recruited and are being trained. The school has also received appropriate accreditation from the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools. This ensures that the quality of SFU’s doctor of medicine program meets national standards so that graduates will be able to provide quality healthcare to patients as practicing physicians.
According to the School of Medicine website, their mission is to enhance “community-based primary health care” in BC. Price shared that students will “be trained in family doctors’ offices and other community specialists [to] get a really good understanding of what happens in community-based care.”
The funding from the Stephens family will provide necessary support for the school during the first year of instruction.
“The funding that they’ve provided [ . . . ] is really over and above what the government had promised us”
— Dr. David J. Price, founding dean of SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine
Price added, “They’re interested in student support. And some of their money is very much earmarked for student support.” The donation will be used to “recruit people in the areas of health and wellness,” fund research, and support students, Price explained.
SFU’s medical school partnered with the First Nations Health Authority to ensure that Indigenous values and perspectives were integrated into the school from the very beginning. “Dr. Rebekah Eatmon, who is an Indigenous physician herself, she’s been our associate dean of Indigenous health, and she and her team have been very instrumental in helping us understand how to set the curriculum, how to ensure that we think about Indigenous students in ways of health and well being,” said Price. “One of the things that one of my Indigenous colleagues has always said to me is that, if you can raise the level of care and cultural sensitivity for Indigenous citizens and Peoples, you’ll raise it for all peoples.”
The Peak also reached out to SFU Media Relations representative, Leslie Dickson. She shared that to address the healthcare disparities in BC and advance Indigenous health, SFU’s medical school will focus on “four key areas:” preparing and training future physicians for working in communities, developing socially responsible mindsets, building community relationships, and incorporating Indigenous values into the curriculum.
