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We are witnessing spectacular developments in
health research and these advances offer tremendous hope to
patients. But the degree of hope offered is matched by the
tremendous challenges posed by these advances. To the same
extent that we encourage innovation in science we should and
must also foster innovation in regulation and governance. But
investments in scientific discovery far outstrip investments in
the legal, regulatory, policy and governance tools and experts
we need to make these scientific discoveries work for the public
good.
There is an acute shortage of researchers trained to deal with health law and policy challenges. The
everyday experience of the applicants and key mentors bears
testimony to this: we receive hundreds of calls from conference
organizers needing speakers, the media needing interviews; and
from various organizations needing papers, and we field
inquiries from the government, providers, citizens and patients.
We need more health law and policy scholars to respond to this
flourishing demand and we need support to set up the
institutional structures to enable those existing scholars that
are stretched to capacity to most effectively train new
scholars. In addition, health law experts are needed as policy
makers in regional health authorities, hospitals and the federal
and provincial/territorial governments.
The key rationale for this Program is to address this shortage
by delivering a new generation of health law and policy
researchers who are trained to embrace a variety of disciplines.
This will help to ensure that our regulatory and governance
capacity matches our scientific capacity.
The objectives of the Program are:
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To encourage increasing numbers of
excellent students in the undergraduate Programs in law to
pursue graduate studies in health law and policy;
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To enrich the training of graduate
students in health law and policy by providing them with
multi-disciplinary learning opportunities through a variety
of innovative programs and to facilitate this by providing
support for mentors in other disciplines whose job
description does not expand to supervising students in the
faculties of law;
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To increase the likelihood that skilled
health law and policy researchers will seek career
opportunities in government and public/quasi-public
institutions by creating a series of placement and
internship opportunities for students;
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To strengthen the development of health
law and policy curricula across the country by providing a
forum for health law teachers and interdisciplinary mentors
to meet and share best practices and curriculum materials.
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