David Eby visits SFU’s new medical school in Surrey

B.C. Premier David Eby visited Simon Fraser University’s new medical school in Surrey on Sept. 16, touring its temporary learning space and meeting the school’s first cohort of medical students.

The Stephens Family School of Medicine demonstrated simulated patient-care rooms, medical mannequins, point-of-care ultrasound, virtual reality and Roman, an AI-powered virtual patient. Roman is designed to let students practise taking medical histories, showing empathy and working toward a diagnosis in a low-stakes setting. SFU said the technology is intended to augment, rather than replace, faculty-led and person-centred medical education.

SFU president and vice-chancellor Joy Johnson said the school is the first medical school to open in Western Canada in nearly 60 years. Its first cohort of 48 students began orientation in August 2026 and is expected to graduate in 2029. The school plans to increase incoming classes to 120 students by 2035.

Eby said the school’s focus on community care supports provincial efforts to improve access to primary care. He said B.C. has connected about one million people with a family doctor or nurse practitioner since 2018, while about 1,400 doctors and nurse practitioners new to the health-care system have joined the workforce. About 4,000 people a week on the Health Connect Registry are now being connected with a doctor or nurse practitioner, he said.

Sangeeta Jaswell, a nurse practitioner at the Urgent and Primary Care Centre in Port Moody, said the registry and similar tools are helping connect more British Columbians with primary-care providers. She said the new school offers an opportunity to train more physicians and strengthen the community primary-care workforce.

The school is to move into a permanent home in Surrey Centre Block, now under construction across from the interim facility. The building is expected to open in 2030 with purpose-built classrooms, clinical and research spaces, and an outpatient clinic offering community-based care and practical learning opportunities for students. More information is available at sfu.ca/medicine.