A vibrant academic community

The Schulich Medicine - Windsor Campus has become a vibrant academic community; this will come as no surprise to most.

However, the Windsor Campus has grown to the point where it is increasingly challenging to be aware of everything that is going on within our medical education environment. To be sure, articles that appear within this newsletter help to capture the stories from our campus.

Thank you for checking in with the newsletter and feel free to share the articles with others.

One of these many stories concerns our efforts during the past two years hosting high school students within the Windsor Campus for a special event called “Anatomy & Healthcare Day”.

What you might not know is how much time goes into the preparation of these events or that as of 2017, local school boards are actively involved in helping to plan for these events (specifically deciding who can participate).

This year’s version of Anatomy & Healthcare Day took place on November 28 with 60 high school students in attendance from the Greater Essex County District School Board, Conseil scolaire catholique Providence and the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board.

As with the events from the past two years, second-year medical students did a wonderful job staffing eight stations and illustrating how much enjoyment they experience as medical students. Of course we are hopeful that some of these high schoolers will return in a few years’ time as medical students themselves.

This is an especially poignant example of how the Windsor Campus demonstrates its appreciation to the Windsor-Essex Community for their warm hospitality.

This is a good-news story. In fact, it caught the attention of the Association of American Medical College’s Group on Regional Medical Campuses where Anatomy & Healthcare Day was considered for a national award regarding community achievement. Another project was selected for the award, but the judging panel had very positive comments regarding Anatomy & Healthcare Day. Special congratulations to Nicole Sbrocca, Anna Farias and Arjun Maini for their work in assembling the submission to the Shining Star Awards and for their innovative ideas.

Congratulations to Shiloh Ricciotti, Medicine Class of 2018, this year’s recipient of the Stigma Enigma Sophie Smith Scholarship Award.

This award is presented annually to a full-time student in their final year of the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s Doctor of Medicine program, who plans to complete his/her residency in psychiatry.

The award was established by local family physician Dr. Patrick Smith in memory of Ms. Sophie Smith. The scholarship is awarded each November at the Stigma Enigma Event for Mental Health.

Since the fall newsletter we were delighted to have autumn visits by some of our newest Schulich Medicine leaders including Dr. Jay Rosenfield, Vice Dean, Education, and Dr. Tisha Joy, Associate Dean, along with Kathy Sadler, Manager of Admissions. These colleagues were keen to learn of our plans, as we talk about where we would like to see the campus head over the next decade or so.

In the shorter-term though, our focus will be on better communicating our story of success with the Windsor-Essex Community.

As the Windsor Campus nears its 10th anniversary we will be looking for ways to celebrate the School’s achievements to date which have been made possible because of our receptive and supportive local community and stakeholders.

We hope to make several announcements early in 2018 with plans about how we will celebrate this important milestone.

Until then, I would like to thank David Musyj, CEO, Windsor Regional Hospital, and the remainder of the team responsible for displaying signs within both the Metropolitan and Ouellette Campuses that acknowledge the strong partnership between WRH and the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.

As we draw closer to the end of December, I would like to wish all a wonderful, safe and peaceful holiday season and a Happy New Year.

Gerry Cooper, EdD
Associate Dean