Accommodations
Temerty Medicine is committed to providing equitable access to education for all MD Program learners, including accommodations to support learners with health conditions or disabilities which may impact their learning.
Providing students with adequate access to appropriate accommodations is only part of the picture. Ensuring students facing challenges affecting their learning or who are experiencing difficulties navigating disability-related barriers to their education are aware of and feel empowered to seek support when it is needed is equally important. The MD Program has maintained consistent outreach to students designed to build awareness of, instill confidence in, and destigmatize the process for seeking support through accommodations. This has been achieved through vehicles like accommodations-focused MD Program newsletters, and the newly created MD Accommodations Process Sheet which helps inform students of available accommodations and guide them through the process of accessing supports which enable full participation in learning.
Students now have clear and concise guidance on accessing accommodations available to them in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand format which consolidates multiple processes from across the University into a single MD-focuses resource.
Usage and awareness of accommodations will continue to be monitored to ensure students feel empowered to seek the support they require.
Financial Aid and Awards
Ensuring students have the financial capacity and literacy through effective financial aid and awards, and access to information on debt management is critical for allowing them to focus on their required learning.
The Program continues to look for new ways to support students with needs-based grants and bursaries, merit-based awards and scholarships, and supports for learning opportunities beyond the classroom and clinical training, as well as a focus on financial literacy which is now embedded in Foundations curriculum.
In 2025-26 between November and March, students received $6 million in financial needs-based grants or bursaries to assist with tuition and living expenses. An additional $500 thousand in awards and scholarships with merit components were disbursed throughout the academic year. To support students even further to pursue their academic goals, Research Conference Bursaries and Travel Stipends were issued to students.
The Program will continue to make student finances a priority by seeking new and innovative ways to support students financially and with good financial information to ensure they are able to focus on their eventual goal of becoming practicing medical professionals.
Leave of Absence
Upon returning from a Program-approved leave of absence, students may often be at different levels of comfort in their knowledge base. Standardizing pathways to re-entry can ensure a smoother return to the program both administratively and to the curriculum.
All students returning from approved leaves are now required to complete a multi-step process designed to ensure readiness to resume their required learning. This process includes:
- the completion of registration requirements through the Office of Enrolment,
- the formalization of any accommodations required to support the resumption of learning with OLA and Accessibility Services,
- the offer to review of specified curricular activities, and,
- the completion of any professionalism remediation requirements, if relevant.
This new streamlined process helps to ensure students who have been absent are appropriately reintegrated into the Program, and are given clearly structured opportunities to refresh their knowledge and are prepared to resume clinical and written assessments.
This new reintegration pathway for returning students will continue to be monitored to ensure the administrative supports are sufficient, and the recommended review of curriculum is adequately preparing students for their re-entry to required learning.
New Academic Advising System
An effective academic advising system that integrates the efforts of faculty, directors, and academic counsellors is critical to ensure the success of all students through proactive engagement.
In 2025, to address the complexities of coordinating the MD Program’s three-tiered academic advising system which includes General Advising (available to all students, Proactive Advising (for students at risk of significant academic difficulty), and Intensive Advising (for students with significant academic difficulty), the position of Director, Academic Advising was created.
This new role is key in coordinating the different components of the academic advising system to ensure students experiencing any level of academic challenges are connected with the supports they need to succeed. This role was created to ensure collaboration across the spectrum of available academic advising supports and to oversee continuous quality improvement of the academic advising system as a whole.
Through ongoing coordination by the Director, Academic Advising, the MD Program remains focused on continuous improvement in Academic Advising to ensure students at all levels receive the tailored academic advising support they need when they need it.
