Operations Update August 2013

• Welcome back! We hope everyone has had a great summer!

• It is the beginning of another exciting academic year. We have a great deal to look forward to as the School takes on a number of new faculty and students into both our traditional medical and dental education programs, and some of our new graduate programs, including the Master of Public Health Program.

• We are looking forward to two grand openings in the near future: The Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine, and the new General Anesthesia Suite in the Dental Sciences Building, which will provide world-class facilities for faculty, staff, students and patients.

• Budget season is quickly approaching and I would just like to remind everyone to begin to gather the usual data and written reports in preparation for the process.

• I would like to welcome Sharon Rasul as a member of the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry Finance Team. In her new role, she will have Dentistry as one of her primary blocks of business. Sharon will be reporting directly to Rosemary Hicks.

Project Management Office/Strategic Technology Commons
Dale Shelley

• The PMO will be offering a two-day 'FOCUS - Tools for Process Improvement and Management' workshop in the late fall. The workshop is based on the Rummler Brache process methodology. Watch for more information on how you can enroll.

• STC continues to work on various projects such as Portfolio (Mahara), MediaPhys, and Virtural Interactive Patients, in preparation for the upcoming academic year, as well as updating training tools such as the OWL and One45 demo videos.

• In conjunction with IS, our STC trainer is preparing materials for the use of the new technology in the new Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine, due to open for classes in September.

• It is with a mix of sadness and excitement that I announce that Holly Gati has accepted a position as Senior Development Officer, Leadership Giving at the Richard Ivey School of Business. For the past two years, Holly has been an integral part of the School's Development Team. Her success, most notably with the Division of Cardiology, has led to the establishment of a new endowed chair and her tireless work ethic & commitment to donors has helped Schulich Development surpass $13 million in each of the past two years. Holly's last day at Schulich will be Friday, September 6. Please join me in wishing our colleague and friend continued success.
  

• Classes resume for undergraduate students on Monday September 9. There are 894 BMSc students and an additional 592 non-BMSc students registered in basic medical sciences modules in Years 3 and 4. Over the next month, enrollment data will be audited for accuracy in preparation of the MTCU count in November.

• A special Orientation-Week event to welcome the inaugural Medical Sciences First Entry students was held on September 5. Short presentations by departmental representatives to introduce students to the basic medical sciences were interspersed with interactive games using Twitter.

• Schulich Medicine & Dentistry faculty and staff will attend the Ontario Universities' Fair in late September to provide information about the BMSc Program and the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience. Organizers anticipate over 120,000 high school students will attend the three-day fair.

• Four international students from West China Medical School, Sichuan University, in China have received scholarships to participate in undergraduate research projects over the next ten months under the tutelage of several Schulich Medicine & Dentistry researchers. We welcome Chaoyi Qin, Ruiqi Chen, Tingting Qiu and Yuzhen Tong to the School, and to London.

• We are continuing efforts on the website redevelopment project. The preliminary site maps have been created and will be presented for feedback at three upcoming stakeholder engagement sessions, as well as select individual teams and department meetings. Following the stakeholder meetings, we will conduct some basic user testing.

• Two upcoming community outreach events include Cafe Scientifique featuring Dr. Chin, Fenster and Baumann, while Mini Medical School features presentations over seven weeks by Drs. Battista, Spence, Hunter, Johnson, Strong, Heisel and LeBel

• The announcement of this year's Leader's in Innovation Dinner special guest was announced. We will be welcoming actor and heart-attack survivor, Martin Sheen to the even, being held on November 18. For more information, click here.

• Check out the new School videos profiling UME, Graduate Studies, Dentistry, Postgraduate Medical Education, as well as our commitment to the community. To view each video in the series, click here.

• The School's Achievement Report can now be found online by clicking here.

• Relive the excitement of Orientation Week with our latest video, found here.

• White Coat Ceremony for incoming Dentistry and Internationally Trained Dentists was held August 30. We welcomed more than 80 students to both programs.

• Dental Clinics Update - the Graduate Orthodontics Clinic and Undergraduate Main Clinic will begin seeing patients on September 3. The Children's Dental Clinic will begin seeing patients on September 9

• A Prior Learning Assessment for the Internationally Trained Dentists (ITD) program was completed on August 16. The top candidates were invited for interviews the week of August 19. The selection committee will meet soon to select those that will begin classes in 2014.

• The Undergraduate Medical Education Program welcomed the incoming Medicine Class of 2017 at the annual White Coat Ceremony held Tuesday August 27. 171 students (133 London campus and at the 38 Windsor Program) joined the School.

• The Meds Orientation week was held the last week of August. The new, four day orientation week began with the White Coat ceremony and included sessions designed to help students understand their role as physicians, as well as offering strategies for academic and personal success in medical school.

• The Undergraduate Medical Education Program is pleased to announce the following three Global Health appointments:

• Dr. Melanie Katsivo has been appointed as Faculty Director, Global Health. Dr. Katsivo will be responsible for setting the vision, monitoring progress, reporting outcomes and suggesting improvements to the education activities occurring within the Global Health program at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry. She will be responsible for ensuring organization and delivery of components to the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula and electives in all communities that are identified and supported for Global Health learning, as well as ensuring that all Global Health (undergraduate and postgraduate) learning meets accreditation standards.

• Dr. Leah Mawhinney has been appointed as Academic Director, Global Health International Learning. Dr. Mawhinney will be responsible for the management and reporting of outcomes and improvements for all undergraduate and selected postgraduate learner international elective experiences in centers and communities of the Schools's Global Health program. Working collaboratively with colleagues, she will ensure that all the School's medical student international global health learning meets all accreditation standards. Dr. Mawhinney will advise on selected PGE resident Global Health international learning rotations and ensure that the Global Health international rotations program meets the mission, vision and strategic directions of Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.

• Dr. Javeed Sukhera has been appointed as Academic Director, Global Health Curriculum. Dr. Sukhera will be responsible for leading Global Health curricular learning, managing Global Health processes and advising on improvements to the Global Health program in Undergraduate Medical Education. He will be responsible for the organization and delivery of Global Health curricula to Schulich Medicine undergraduate medical students in London, Windsor and the communities of southwestern Ontario. Dr. Sukhera will also advise on/manage local and national Global Health learning experiences for Undergraduate Medical and Dental students and, in collaboration with colleagues, ensure that all Global Health student learning experiences are standardized and consistent with accreditation standards.

Facilities
Kevin Inchley

• Faculty and staff will begin moving into the Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine on September 10.

• Installation of equipment in the now finished Dentistry General Anesthesia Suite will being the week of September 16.

• IS has been busy preparing for the start of the new academic year, ensuring that yearly processes are taken care of as we welcome students back to campus. This includes the creation of new email for life accounts for our incoming medical and dental classes. The IS team has also performed a software update on all IS managed classrooms and meeting rooms, as well as the VERC, and installed new projectors in approximately 11 classrooms.

• IS has finished "migrating" the staff and faculty at the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine to the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry network in preparation for their physical move to the new Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine building in September. Other preparations for technology infrastructure and services in the new building are also progressing well.

• Information Services is working with Western ITS and other faculties on campus to attempt to build and offer a central infrastructure for the qualitative data analysis software called Nvivo. Nvivo is software that is used by multiple groups at the School, and having a centrally managed and supported infrastructure for this software should provide great benefits to our community. Stay tuned for further details as this initiative develops.

Media Relations
Kathy Wallis

• We had an incredible response from local media to the See the Line sport concussion symposium. Here is a sampling of coverage: CTV two, London Free Press, Metro, London Community News, and TSN, as well as radio interviews on CJBK, Radio 98, The Fan and CBC Radio including Radio Canada. Rogers Television recorded the entire symposium for a show called "Podium" which will air this fall.

• A news release on Dr. Brian Feagan's clinical trial reported in the New England Journal of Medicine received national and international coverage including Medical Daily, Medical Express, CTV National, and London Free Press

• The detainment in Egypt of Dr. Tarek Loubani, assistant professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, also received widespread coverage. Dr. Loubani was on his way to Gaza where he has been working to improve emergency medicine training. Most of the interviews were handled by Dr. Gary Joubert, chair/chief, Division of Emergency Medicine and Dr. Amit Shah, a colleague and friend of Dr. Loubani. This story will no-doubt continue to draw attention until Dr. Loubani, and filmmaker John Greyson's release. Here is one of the websites set up to collect names on a petition to urge government action to free the two.

• Dr. Greg Vilk has joined the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry Research Office. Dr. Vilk will be focusing on developing and fostering the School's interactions with industry. He will be located in Room 1240 at the Robarts Research Institute, and can be reached at greg.vilk@schulich.uwo.ca or ext. 20144.

• Vicki Vanstrien's last day at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry was on Sept 4. Vicki has served as the administrator for student/trainee research programs including MD/PhD SRTP/SROP, and the Clinician Investigator Program, and her work with these programs has been invaluable. We wish her well with her future plans.

• Proposals for the new Collaborative Research Seed Grants (CRSG) are currently under review. Decisions should be announced by early October.