Education and research

Established in 2012, the Dilawri Simulation Centre has been providing specialized training to physicians, nurses, medical residents, paramedics and medicine/nursing students.  Practitioners from many areas learn and practice high risk procedures and processes while working together as a team. Additionally, the centre is an essential training tool for medical students and residents in Regina’s hospitals. It remains the safest, most realistic way to train students and residents on essential patient procedures. Using high-fidelity mannequins, computer software and skilled staff, the Dilawri Simulation Centre has prepared our medical teams to deliver outstanding care to the people of our community.

The centre was made possible through a significant donation from the Dilawri Foundation to Hospitals of Regina Foundation. Since then, the Foundation has continued to invest in increasingly advanced and life-like mannequins and simulation technologies for the centre. This investment in a world-class simulation centre has transformed medical education for more than 36,000 students and healthcare professionals who have undergone training there.

In 2022, the Foundation entered into a new partnership with the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine to help expand the medical program at the Regina General Hospital. For the first time ever, the MD program accepted 40 first-year medical students in August 2022 to begin their studies here in Regina.

A new classroom, study spaces and an anatomy lab have been added to the campus to support the education and training requirements for all four years of the MD program. The anatomy lab is outfitted with modern anatomy tools, equipment and information technology, and is an important part of the medical school experience.

Historically, medical students would be required to take their first year of medical school at the College’s Saskatoon campus, and then their second through fourth years would be available in Regina. The change provides students with the opportunity to complete their entire four-year MD education in Regina, with the hope it will attract more students from southern Saskatchewan.  It will also help retain a greater number of medical school graduates upon completion of the program.

In August 2024, Hospitals of Regina Foundation announced a new major partnership between six hospital foundations (The Health Foundation of East Central Saskatchewan, Hospitals of Regina Foundation, St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation, Lloydminster Region Health Foundation, Boreal Healthcare Foundation and St. Anthony’s Hospital Foundation) and Suncrest College. The investment made by the foundations helped launch a new Diagnostic Sonography Program at Suncrest College.

The new Diagnostic Sonography Program is a 28-month advanced diploma program, which combines blended theory with hands-on classroom learning and practical clinical experience.

The program enhances the care available to patients from across Saskatchewan by training and graduating, for the first time, medical ultrasound technicians in Saskatchewan. Ultrasound sonography is a key diagnostic tool medical teams use to diagnose and treat many conditions, including monitoring a developing baby's health during pregnancy, gallbladder disease, the evaluation of blood flow, tumour biopsy and treatment, thyroid gland conditions, genital and prostate problems, joint inflammation and metabolic bone disease.