Research is increasingly done on a programmatic basis by cross disciplinary teams. Ways of effectively blending the activities of departments deserve further exploration. It was suggested by some that space should not be seen as belonging to departments but should increasingly be managed on a collective basis by the Faculty and, where appropriate, in cooperation with the hospitals. In summary, while specific recommendations were not forthcoming there was a sense that the Faculty of Medicine needs to improve on the efficiency with which research is conducted and to improve the overall research environment. Perhaps the major opportunity for the Faculty of Medicine to generate new resources lies in the exploitation of technology and capitalization on the intellectual strengths of the Faculty and the associated hospitals.
Considerable discussion is needed about the ownership and development of new technologies.
The Faculty of Medicine should develop appropriate vehicles for technology exploitation. This would include the development of an incubator facility to serve at least Nova Scotia and probably the entire Atlantic Region. There are also opportunities for exploitation of information technology and the Faculty should recognize information as a valuable product. There was brief discussion of the potential merits of a regional academic organization that would bring efficiencies of scale and permit sharing of costly infrastructure for education, dissemination of practice information, and research both at the basic and population levels. However, there was a general sense that regionalization has not worked well enough on a smaller scale to pursue on a larger one at this time and concerns that such an entity would just add another level of bureaucracy.