An Innovative Program in a Growing Field
The Cumming School of Medicine Precision Health Program was designed to meet the professional development needs of current and future healthcare practitioners across Canada and internationally. This unique program strengthens students’ knowledge and skills in Precision Health and supports role integration in areas such as advanced clinical skills, data science, entrepreneurship, organizational leadership, research, education, professional development, and consultation to impact patient, provider, and health system outcomes.
The Precision Health program is offering a program award based on financial need to one Precision Health certificate student for each specialization, to the amount of $12,840. To apply, please complete this application form and send the completed copies to prehgrad@ucalgary.ca. Eligibility information can be found here.
Program Pathway and Delivery
Each of the Graduate Credentials in Precision Health are cohort-based 12-month programs (with four 3-unit courses in each level), specifically designed to accommodate busy, working professionals.
Students who successfully complete the certificate with a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher are eligible to apply for admission into the Graduate Diploma in Precision Health. Diploma holders will be eligible to apply for admission into the Master of Precision Health degree and will receive advanced credit for 24 units of coursework completed. Each level of the program is one year long starting in the fall, making it possible to complete the master's degree in three years.
(See our Academic Calendar for the definition of full-time and part-time status for course-based programs.)
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, all courses in the 2023/2024 year will be delivered with a combination of online synchronous sessions and asynchronous content and discussions using platforms such as Zoom and Desire-2-Learn (the university's learning management system). This will allow students who live outside of Calgary to obtain graduate education at the Cumming School of Medicine while continuing to work.
Year 1: Graduate Certificate
Select one of the following four specializations:
Precision Medicine
Quality and Safety Leadership
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
or Health Professions Education Leadership
Year 2: Graduate Diploma
Your second credential is earned by completing four courses:
Health System Leadership
Managing Complex Projects in Precision Health
and two electives of your choice
Year 3: Master of Precision Health
This final stage includes an experiential learning opportunity, research project, or internship in order to integrate theory, research, application and experience.
Program Specializations
The Precision Health Program is comprised of a Graduate Certificate in Precision Health, a Graduate Diploma in Precision Health, and a Master of Precision Health with four specializations to choose from:
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Leaders in Precision Health are challenged to think entrepreneurially – to notice the clients’ problems and develop innovative solutions for them, embedded in viable business models.
Quality and Safety Leadership
Quality and Safety Leadership is about achieving optimal outcomes for patient populations.
Health Professions Education Leadership
The emergence of Precision Health poses significant challenges to clinicians and health professional educators.
Precision Medicine
Precision Medicine represents a new and disruptive approach to the way health care is delivered, with the “precision” of care and wellness actions that are tailored to the individual makeup of each person.
"Two important revolutions are going to transform 21st-century healthcare. First, big data is revealing the nature of human biological complexity both for wellness and disease and the idea that this complexity must be studied at the level of the individual and not the averaged population. Second, systems approaches are allowing us to translate these big data into fundamental insights about how to treat patients, how to discover biomarkers that will predict the health trajectories of individuals, possible targets for drugs, and finally an understanding of wellness and disease mechanisms. The Precision Health program at the University of Calgary introduces students to all of these and more. Were I a young student today, I would find this program irresistible.”
Dr. Leroy Hood, MD, PhD
Chief Strategy Officer | Professor | Institute for Systems Biology
“We are excited about the Precision Health Program because it will provide new opportunities for healthcare professionals to acquire skills in precision health in a flexible, part-time, blended-online format.”
Dr. Geneviève Moineau, MD, FRCPC
President and CEO, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
The program offers important opportunities for physicians to increase their understanding and skill in precision health and other areas.
Dr. Dawn Hartfield BScMed, MPH, MD, FRCPC,Assistant Registrar, Continuing Competence & Accreditation
College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA)
Precision Health Program Award
Frequently Asked Questions - Precision Health
Precision Health represents a new and innovative approach to the way health care is delivered, which is tailored to a patient's genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors.
Note: There are varying definitions for the terms defined in these FAQs, but for the purposes of this program the above definition will be used.
Precision Medicine is the direct application of “big data” molecular biology and computational tools in the clinical context.
Precision medicine focuses on the patient as an individual, rather than one-size-fits-all medicine. This program was built around the concept of co-production of care, which empowers the patient and health care provider to decide collaboratively how best to meet a patient’s needs.
Personalized Medicine is an older term that is synonymous with precision health, but is becoming less popular these days.
Students can only take one specialization at a time.
The Graduate Certificate in Precision Health is part-time and takes one year to complete. This is one course each semester over the four standard semesters (i.e., fall, winter, spring and summer).
Once you have completed the Certificate and have a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher, you may choose to continue in the Diploma and then Master's programs. Each program is part-time, takes one year to complete, and requires completion of one course each semester over four semesters.
Courses at the certificate, diploma and master's levels will be taught by reputable UCalgary faculty members who are experts in the fields of precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, omics, quality safety leadership, health education, and medical entrepreneurship, etc.
The program is collaboratively delivered by Cumming School of Medicine and Haskayne School of Business faculty members.
High-profile guest speakers will also share their expertise with students.
Stay in touch with the Precision Health Program
Collection of personal information
Your personal information is collected under
the authority of section 33(c) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. If
you have any questions about the collection or use of this information, please visit our
Access to Information page.
Do you have a question about the program? Get in touch
Ali Kiani
Graduate Program Administrator
Email: prehgrad@ucalgary.ca
Dr. David Anderson
Graduate Program Director