A Brief History of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary

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The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine is one of the younger medical schools in Canada, which had been created roughly forty-six years ago – in 1967. Primarily conceived as a higher learning institution to train family physicians, at a time when there was a perceived shortage, it has moved beyond this by evolving into a school that educates physicians for a great spectrum of activities: from primary care to specialty care; to careers in education, management, and research.

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The school has seen many infrastructural changes occur since its inception. Originally housed on the University’s main campus, students in the class of 1975 were the first to start their program in the newly constructed Health Sciences Building, built adjacent to the Foothills Hospital. The advent of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) in the early 1980s brought with it the opportunity to expand the Faculty of Medicine with research expertise.

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Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Faculty recruited more than 100 well-trained biomedical and health care researchers. In order to house these researchers, the Heritage Medical Research Building was built in November of 1987 with funding made available by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. On April 22nd, 2005, the University of Calgary then saw the inauguration of the new O’Brien Centre for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) Program, with innovative educational and research facilities in an undergraduate degree.It is part of the Faculty of Medicine, but has also close ties to many other Faculties on Main Campus, to local institutions and the Alberta Health Services. In 2004, the Faculty of Medicine further witnessed the establishment of its “sister faculty” in the Foothills complex, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM). The first professors and researchers of the UCVM were recruited in the following year and the inaugural graduate students program started in 2006. Last year – 2008 –, the first undergraduate DVM class has begun its education in Calgary, with the commencement of the academic year in September.
Throughout the years, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Calgary has thus grown and developed into an internationally recognized education and research facility. It takes pride in its multidisciplinary approach to medical research, education and patient care. This structure has allowed for the tight sharing of knowledge between doctors and researchers, and it fostered the transfer of knowledge from the laboratory to the bedside of patients.  More information can be gained through The Alberta Medical History Collection project.

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