Mapping our progress
Educational Excellence
Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s commitment to educational excellence is demonstrated through a broad range of innovative programs, by strengthening learner career opportunities and in a deep commitment to research and scholarship. As you’ll see in the stories below, the School is making great progress in strengthening our educational offerings to better prepare our graduates for tomorrow.
Goals:
- Renew the Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMSc) program through enhanced experiential learning focused on students’ career goals, careful growth, and internationalization.
- Enhance interdisciplinarity in our graduate programming.
- Attend to career development for BMSc, graduate, and postdoctoral learners.
- Strengthen dental education, focusing on clinical training excellence and increased postgraduate opportunities.
- Renew the MD curriculum, integrating education around clinical experience.
- Create innovative opportunities for medical students through MD+.
- Nurture excellence and leadership in postgraduate medical education.
- Support lifelong learning through a renewed commitment to continuing professional development.
- Build high-level quality and consistency in education programs through a dedicated academy of educators.
- Advance education research and scholarship across the School.
Educational Excellence in Action
Western graduates receive Governor General’s Gold Medal
Three Western graduates are among the recipients of this year’s Governor General’s Academic Medals, announced recently.
Research Impact
Our aspiration to attain greater national and global prominence hinges on enhancing the success and impact of our research. Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s research profile is gaining momentum as we increase our share of funding opportunities and bring to the School some of the world’s top researchers, as evidenced by these stories that illustrate the recent milestones we’ve achieved.
Goals:
- Embed a culture of research in all our education programs.
- Recruit, enable, and retain research-intensive faculty.
- Promote and support bench-to-bedside translational research.
- Identify and support existing and emerging areas of strength to drive our research prominence.
- Establish clear foci for programs, centres, and institutes.
- (Re) invest in core facilities.
- Launch an initiative to accelerate the design and conduct of clinical trials.
- Facilitate interdepartmental, interdisciplinary, interfaculty, and interinstitutional collaboration that emphasizes the importance of team-based research.
- Create investigator-centred operational processes.
- Support effective communication and dissemination of research activities.
Research Impact in Action
World AIDS Day: Decoding HIV’s stealth strategy
Virologist Stephen Barr, PhD, is on a mission to unveil and fight a ‘trickster’ HIV virus mechanism that evades the immune system.
Goals:
- Respond fully to the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
- Increase our Indigenous faculty and staff complement, including by efforts to recruit and retain our own graduates.
- Establish an Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization (EDID), led by a new Associate Dean.
- Embed EDI principles in all selection processes, including committee composition.
- Improve student access for under-represented and equity-deserving groups.
- Develop curricula that address the effects of racism on health.
- Develop and implement antiracist practices among faculty, staff, and learners.
- Support research and scholarship in health equity.
- Identify and address the distinct health needs of Southwestern Ontario, including through training and retaining health professionals.
Social Accountability in Action
World AIDS Day: Reflecting on a career of impact in probiotics research and community health
Professor Emeritus Gregor Reid, PhD, is being honoured with the creation of a new award - given out in his name - that recognizes his work in low- and middle-income countries through Western Heads East.
Medical students’ initiative hopes to improve health-care services for Canadian refugees
A shared passion has led Class of 2024 medical students Lotus Alphonsus, Amalka De Silva and Penelope Neocleous to create a service that helps newcomers to Canada take control of their health-care needs.
Pathology professor contributes to ‘sacred work’ of investigating missing Indigenous children
Forensic pathologist Dr. Rebekah Jacques is providing support and guidance to Indigenous families and communities as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials.
People
Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s strength is our people – our learners, faculty, and staff. Our ability to innovate and to influence health care locally and globally relies on enabling and empowering our people to reach their full potential. Here, we’ve highlighted some of the remarkable progress we’re making in advancing a culture where people feel valued, can stretch their capabilities, develop their talents and contribute in a meaningful way.
Goals:
- Enhance opportunities for the professional development of faculty and staff.
- Invest in leadership development for faculty, staff, and learners.
- Acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of faculty at distributed sites and support their career development.
- Ensure that the full range of faculty academic activities is properly valued in promotions processes.
- Identify, develop, and support faculty whose focus is teaching and education scholarship.
- Strengthen approaches to faculty and learner wellness.
- Support and strengthen learner engagement.
- Strengthen mentorship programs for faculty at all academic ranks.
- Ensure that an ethos of respect, fairness, and belonging is embedded into the culture of departments and other groups.
People in Action
Thirteen Western alumni make Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women list
Leaders in private, public sectors honoured for leadership, vision
Western professor co-founds ‘guilt-free’ luxury soap brand
Waterless, toxin- and plastic-free products also avoid chemicals and petroleum
Service to country and community inspired by medical career
Dr. Ian Ball is a Major in the Reserve Force of the Canadian Armed Forces and a member of the Office of Military Academic Medicine at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry. In the lead up to Remembrance Day, he shares his experiences, his inspiration to serve and advice for students.
Partnerships
The health-care environment is changing, requiring partnerships, teams and collaborations that span our community and the globe. Schulich Medicine & Dentistry is widely recognized as facilitating a collegial working environment. As you’ll see here, we are taking strategic, concrete steps to strengthen the collaborative, interdisciplinary partnerships that will help us realize our goals.
Goals:
- Grow our relationship with hospitals and community health care organizations, and make our collaborations visible.
- Strengthen our relationship with the Windsor Campus and leverage its location to attract international learners.
- Expand community-engaged learning opportunities across the School.
- Work with communities to draw more Southwestern Ontario students, including those from under-represented groups, into biomedical sciences, public health, dentistry and medicine.
- Raise our research profile within the region and its communities, and encourage participation among the Southwestern Ontario population.
- Promote interfaculty and interinstitutional collaborations.
- Establish and maintain collaborative research and education programs with key global partners.
- Develop productive partnerships outside academia, including with industry.
- Enhance engagement with our alumni.
Partnerships in Action
Program brings together scientists and policymakers to improve communication, build relationships
How can we improve the flow of new knowledge from research into policymaking? Postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Michaels, PhD, took part in a program that brings scientists and policymakers together to break down stereotypes.
Social Accountability
Equity, diversity, inclusion, and antiracism are foundational in making real our commitment to being a more inclusive School. We are working diligently to ensure that everyone finds a home in our enterprise. It’s the only way we can maximize our potential. As highlighted by the stories below, we are making strong and steady progress toward our goal of bringing these values to life – on campus and beyond.