Physicians making an impact on the School of Medicine: Meet Dr. Dominick Shelton

For Dr. Dominick Shelton, his position as interim assistant dean, recruitment & admissions at TMU’s School of Medicine is the culmination of his professional career: a weaving together of the many distinct threads that have brought him to where he is today.

There’s the medical thread, obviously – but that didn’t start as early for Dr. Shelton as it did for many of his fellow physicians. Growing up in Brampton, he was interested in life sciences and performed well academically throughout elementary and high school, but he didn’t see medicine as his path. That changed in Grade 12, when Dr. Shelton’s father asked their family physician to take Dr. Shelton under his wing.

“He was an instrumental person on my journey,” Dr. Shelton says. “He was the house physician at a nursing home, and he took me along with him once a month on his visits. He really went above and beyond to give me the confidence to see myself belonging in a medical environment.” 

After completing his undergraduate biology at University of Waterloo and medical degree at the University of Toronto, Dr. Shelton went on to train in family medicine, and then emergency medicine. Today, he is an emergency physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, where he also worked for many years in quality improvement and patient safety. “I wouldn’t change anything about my journey,” Dr. Shelton says. “I bring my family physician's perspective to the emergency department, which helps me to work effectively with family doctors to ensure continuity of care.”

Advocating for Equity

It was in medical school that another thread began for Dr. Shelton: that of a commitment to advocacy. “I was one of only two Black students in my medical school class,” he says. “I ultimately did find my ‘group’, but there was a strong sense of not belonging.” He also noticed that he was not seeing physicians who looked like him in hospitals and clinics. “So many Black students have the ability, but not the opportunities,” Dr. Shelton says. “I wanted to help them access those opportunities.”  

Dr. Shelton began his advocacy at U of T, co-founding the Summer Mentorship Program (external link) , which gives Black and Indigenous high school students the opportunity to explore health sciences. He went on to co-found the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario (external link) , an organization that supports the growth of Black health professionals and advocates for improving the health of people in Black communities in Ontario. “Black people are underrepresented among physicians,” Dr. Shelton says. “I want to do whatever I can to change that.”

Building Change

Another of Dr. Shelton’s threads is that of a builder. He is a co-founder of TAIBU (external link) , a community health centre in Scarborough. TAIBU offers Black-identifying clients from throughout the Greater Toronto Area access to primary care, health promotion and disease prevention programs in a culturally affirming environment. “Creating and developing TAIBU from the ground up gave me the experience of building something large and new, but it also cemented for me the importance of community-based medicine, interprofessional medicine and how care is delivered,” Dr. Shelton says. “When I read the job description for the role at TMU and saw all of those themes, it spoke to me.”

His work in quality improvement and patient safety has also given him valuable insight into building new systems and structures. “Many problems that arise in medicine are because of issues that occur at a system level,” Dr. Shelton says. “Having that lens has been invaluable for me in identifying and addressing the root cause of a problem, rather than the symptom.”

Weaving the Threads Together

As interim assistant dean, recruitment & admissions, Dr. Shelton brings his medical, advocacy and building work together to create recruitment and admissions processes with equity at the centre. “We’re developing processes to address the underrepresentation of equity-deserving groups within medicine,” Dr. Shelton says. “There are aspiring physicians out there who will make excellent doctors, but who may be unsuccessful applying to most medical schools because of their journey in life. We are turning that around to value unique life experiences and the diversity of people who are capable of becoming physicians.”

The cherry on top? The TMU School of Medicine will be located in Brampton – Dr. Shelton’s hometown. “It’s so poignant for me to return to where my journey began,” he says, “and to give back to the community from which I received so much.”