Camp Med celebrates 20 years of shaping northern Ont. health care

Forty-two high school students from 13 northeastern communities are getting hands-on medical training at NOSM University's CampMed in Sudbury.

Students from across northeastern Ontario are getting a hands-on look at the medical world. A total of 42 students from 13 communities are at NOSM University in Sudbury this week participating in Camp Med.

The camp runs July 6-10 in Sudbury and July 13-17 in Thunder Bay.

“It’s an opportunity for campers to have an immersive experience where they learn clinical skills, get to meet with some of our health professionals across the region, as well as develop relationships with some of our student mentors,” said Katie Biasiol, the school’s director of admissions and learner recruitment.

Lia Paille, a Grade 11 student from Sudbury, said she’s always been interested in medicine.

“It’s really fun. I wasn’t expecting it to be as interactive as it is, but it offers such a unique experience,” Paille said.

“You can study textbooks and you could research by yourself, but you can’t put a cast on someone else, you know. But I think that it offers a diverse experience that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Timmins Grade 11 student Keenan Delcambre said he wanted to participate to help him decide whether he wants to pursue a career in health care.

“I love it a lot. It’s really fun,” Delcambre said.

“I’ve managed to learn a lot about what I would about my profession as well, and that would be like radiology and all that. And it’s very nice to learn such clinical skills.”

The grade 10 and 11 students participating in the camp are from Greater Sudbury, Porcupine, North Bay, New Liskeard, Sault Ste. Marie, Cochrane and Timmins.

“We’re hoping to inspire them to choose a career in health care,” said Biasiol.

“Not necessarily a physician. We have rehab science programs, so they have opportunities to meet physiotherapists, physician assistants, dietetics, as well as medical professionals, specialist doctors.”

Throughout the five-day camp, students learn how to wrap a cast, apply sutures and a variety of other activities.

“There’s a crime scene investigation unit that they participate in,” Biasiol said.

“They just finished a session on wilderness medicine. We have a health-care career panel. We have a dietetic session. We have a physiotherapist come in. So there are lots of opportunities to meet with professionals.”

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, she said Camp Med has hosted more than 1,200 campers in that time from 150 communities across northern Ontario.

“We know that we’ve had over 50 learners that have started as med students come back to volunteer,” Biasiol added.

For some, the experience has come full circle. Tessa Zuck and Liam Hopkins are both second-year medical students at NOSM and are Camp Med team leaders.

From Camp Med to NOSM

Both participated in the camp while in high school.

“I was really interested in sciences at the time, had broken a bone, had a little bit of that health-care experience, and so it was right up my alley,” said Hopkins, who is planning on practicing family medicine in the north.

He said the experience inspired him to pursue a career in medicine.

“I was exposed to so many different specialties at the camp, stuff that I had never learned about before,” Hopkins said.

“Not only the role of the physician, but also so many allied health professionals and actually very much pushed me in that direction.”

Zuck, who said she loved her experience at Camp Med, is planning on becoming a neurosurgeon in northern Ontario,

“It was really an opening into what the medical field looks like at such a young age (when you’re) still figuring out what you want to do in high school,” she said.

“So that really kind of opened my eyes to what the medical field has to offer.”

There is a $450 registration fee to attend the camp, which funds Camp Med, Biasiol said.

“But through that and through our donations, we are able to offer some sponsorships for those campers that really want to attend,” she said.

“I think we’ve offered probably 9 or 10 sponsorships for the Sudbury campus and we’ll do about the same in Thunder Bay.”

Delcambre said he encourages anyone who’s thinking about working in health care to apply.

“Anyone who really wants to come and learn a little bit about medical things, you’re going to learn a lot,” he said.

“And sometimes it might be tiring, but you’re going to absolutely love it by the end of the day.”

Biasiol said she hopes to see Camp Med expand to include more communities to accommodate a larger number of campers.

For those interested in applying, applications for the 2027 season open July 9.