Rural and remote communities have long been challenging health care settings that rely on distant metropolises to supply their health workforce. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine, a pioneering faculty of medicine founded in 2005, was established to realize the potential of the rich learning environments found in such communities. This is the story of the establishment of a school of medicine that is part of a growing trend toward providing medical education that responds to the needs of remote populations and produces resourceful physicians capable of meeting those needs.

Addressing the rural health workforce shortage through distributed community engaged medical education - the story of Canada's first new medical school for the twenty-first century.