Grant: Training Grant

With breakthroughs in scientific discovery comes the need for advances in the legal and ethical frameworks necessary to ensure advances are implemented in the health care system without harm. With a 2001 CIHR grant we built a Health Law and Policy Training network at Dalhousie University, the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto. By combining expertise both across universities and across disciplines we provide sophisticated multi-disciplinary training in order to address challenges such as use of patient data for research purposes, the development of regulatory frameworks for new drugs, or the ethical use of stem cells. Our 71 trainees are all employed as academics or decision makers (in government, in non-governmental organizations and international agencies) or are pursuing further study. In addition to our success preparing urgently needed graduates, we have also provided an unprecedented forum for experts in Canadian health law and policy. Well over 500 academics, decision-makers, and scholars in fields as diverse as sociology and physics have attended our annual conferences and seminars. Our website, on which our faculty put their course curricula, has become a valuable tool for Canadian teachers of health law (particularly those who are not lawyers teaching law to, for example, to medical students) and to scholars internationally. We seek CIHR funding to continue this Program and to expand it in the following ways: to support training in French and exchange with Quebec researchers; to expand internationally through a new exchange program; to add new disciplines to speak to emerging health challenges in, for example, aboriginal health, mental health, and nanotechnology; to weave and strengthen ethics training throughout the Program; and to provide a mentorship matrix for our Master¿s students that enhances their multi-disciplinary research skills and their ability to translate their knowledge to achieve impact in the health care system.