Martin Phillipson says the University of Saskatchewan’s medical college needs to focus more on teaching and research.

The college’s vice-provost presented his plan to lift the medical school off probation to the Saskatchewan Medical Association Assembly Saturday.

The College of Medicine, while still accredited, was placed on academic probation in early October for failing to meet national accreditation standards.

Phillipson wants to see the college rethink how it pays doctors for academic work.

Full-time faculty doctors getting a full academic salary at the college are being used to backfill clinical services in the health system, according to Phillipson. They are only providing a part-time academic commitment to the university.

“Right now the clinical service demands and the rewards for clinical service trump academic work, and we have to rebalance that,” Phillipson said.

His plan is to bring more clinical service doctors into the faculty, which will increase the amount of learning opportunities for students. Each doctor will commit to some level of teaching time and academic work, but will only receive academic pay for the academic work they do.

“We have to rebalance our compensation model in terms of how much we pay our faculty here for their academic work as opposed to their clinical work,” Phillipson said.

Most medical schools in Canada generate upwards of 40 per cent of their university’s total research funding. The U of S medical school only generates eight per cent.

Phillipson wants to recruit more medical scientists who are devoted to research to the school.

“It’s hiring specific faculty who will spend most of their time on clinical research, and also on an ongoing basis it’s recruiting faculty and making sure they have research potential,” he said.

The plan was well received by community doctors and students.

“Mark Phillipson has done a good job, but he needs support. He needs the support of this organization,” said cardiologist A. Ruben J. Rajakumar.

“There are things moving forward right now, things that are already in place, improvements that have already been made that are continuing to get better and better,” said Drew Hager, vice-president of the Student Medical Society of Saskatchewan.

Accreditors will return to the university Nov. 27 to look at the school’s plan to get off academic probation. Phillipson expects accreditors to make a decision the school’s probationary status around January 2015.