July & August 2015
Chief Operating Officer
- Congratulations to Nicole Farrell, the newest member of our Manager of Administration and Finance team on her role in Clinical and Neurological Sciences. We know she will do an excellent job.
- Please watch for communication regarding the process for the renewal of our Strategic Plan in the coming weeks.
Research
- We have initiated the Schulich Medicine & Dentistry/Lawson peer review process for reseachers intending to submit to the Project Scheme: 2016 1st live pilot competition. The goal of this internal peer review process is to strengthen proposals being prepared for the March 2016 competition.
- The internal review for Stage 1 applications to the CIHR 2016 Foundation Live Pilot is underway. The deadline for Stage 1 applications is September 15.
- Applications for the Team Bridge Funding (TBF) competition are currently under review. The TBF program is intended to enable teams of researchers to bridge a critical CIHR funding gap.
Basic Medical Sciences
Basic Medical Sciences Undergraduate Education (BMSUE)
Dr. Candace Gibson
- BMSUE is coordinating the allocation and hiring of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA) from basic medical science departments in preparation for the start of undergraduate classes on September 10.
- The annual career survey for graduates from the BMSc and Neuroscience Programs is currently underway. Survey results show a wide variety of career choices including medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, graduate programs, optometry, physiotherapy, education and law.
- Faculty and staff from BMSUE and the Basic Medical Science Departments will participate in a Meet and Greet during O-week activities held for incoming first-year Medical Sciences and Science students.
- BMSUE welcomes new faculty member, Dr. Nicole Campbell, who will be responsible for the Year 4 Medical Science courses and the co-development of a Year 3 interdisciplinary lab course for students in the Honors Specialization Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences (IMS).
Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs
Dr. Andrew Watson
- Hillary Brown a PhD graduate from our Epidemiology and Biostatistics program, received the Collip Award for producing the top PhD thesis at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry in the past year. Brown completed her PhD in the laboratory of Karen Campbell, PhD.
- The first ever Dean's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (DUROP) four-minute research presentations were held. Eighteen fantastic talks were presented covering the full breadth of the School’s research areas. This inaugural event was significant for the quality of the talks, as these presenting students are our first DUROP cohort. and We will be expecting great things from them as they continue with their educational experience at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.
- All Graduate Chairs took part in a retreat directed at defining ways in which our programs can become more instructive and proactive with regards to assisting our graduate students as they prepare themselves for the diverse career pathways that we now know our former MSc and PhD students have taken upon their graduation from the School. Nana Lee, PhD, and Reinhart Reithmeier, PhD, from the University of Toronto both presented excellent talks on their experience with developing graduate level curriculum around this important topic. Donna Moore from Western's Student Success Center, and our own Alison Allan, PhD, also both presented overview of the current Western Univeristy and Schulich Medicine & Dentistry activities in this area. This subject will become a major theme for the Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs office in the coming year.
Communications
- We are pleased to welcome Nicole Holme, who will be joining the team on a limited term contract and supporting events logistics in the coming weeks.
- See the Line was held on August 12, bringing more than 1,500 community members to campus to learn the latest concussion education and research. The day was great success and the biggest event of its kind to date.
- Promotion for the Dentistry 50th Anniversary and Homecoming are in full swing and event logistics are being finalized for each of these events.
- Save the date promotion has begun for Leaders in Innovation Dinner (November 18) and we are pleased to announce that comedy legend Martin Short will join us as the keynote speaker.
- During the summer months, major marketing and awareness projects focused on Distributed Education, Undergraduate Medical Education, Dentistry and Robarts were completed. Staff and faculty will begin to see more of these projects in the coming weeks.
- In the past week, tremendous support has been directed to provide strong awareness around the joint White Coat Ceremony, and Community Day.
- The Pulse, our monthly faculty and staff newsletter has been redesigned to meet the interests and needs of our teams across the School.
- Phase Three of the website redevelopment project is proceeding nicely.
- All Phase Three departments, divisions and programs have completed Cascade training and have begun to migrate content into their new sites. The Communications team will be working with each of them in the coming weeks to ensure all new sites meet Web Standards and are ready for launch in late-October of this year. If you have any questions about the website redevelopment and the upcoming site launch, please contact Brian Blatnicki at brian.blatnicki@schulich.uwo.ca, or by phone at ext. 88993.
Information Services
- We are pleased to announce that working with Western ITS, student leadership and the UDE and UME offices, we have transitioned medical/dental student/alumni Email For Life addresses/accounts to Western's new Student Office 365 system. This change allows current students to access both their Schulich Medicine & Dentistry-specific as well as Western University email address through a single account.
- The Office 365 email system provides our Email for Life users with a number of great benefits including:
- Vastly increased mailbox storage
- Modern and robust email and calendaring feature set
- Seamless integration with mobile devices
- During the summer months, IS implemented important upgrades to Single Sign-On. The upgrades include a new, more user friendly interface for UME students to use when making their I&T course selections, the completion of the second phase of Absence Tracking module which includes more administrative functionality, and the automation of the Assumption of Risk form for first-year medical students.
- Our Educational Technology & Media Services team completed upgrades in our classroom/meeting rooms over the summer, including upgrading to MS Office 2013 (PowerPoint, Word and Excel), AV updates on the first and second floor of WCPHFM to improve functionality, and the design and implementation of a new lecture capture solution that improves the video and audio quality of lecture captures within the videoconference lecture halls (MSB146 and DSB1002).
Project Management Office/Strategic Technology Commons
- STC is working on: the development of a course design brief (pilot) which will help to map course instructional goals with materials and resources to standardize course design; conceptual labs for the BMSc program; and a standardized biochemistry curriculum joint program with Schulich Medicine & Dentistry and McMaster University.
- The PMO is actively involved in two major projects within Dentistry: Digital X-Ray & Patient Management System and the Simulation Lab re-build. Workshops on Change Management took place during the summer and will continue into the Fall. We thank past participants for their positive and valuable feedback. Please email pmo.inquiry@schulich.uwo.ca to enquire about or register for an upcoming workshop.
Education
- UME and Admissions Programs are working to ensure that all first year students register for a MINC number - a new province-wide initiative ensuring students have a single, identifying number that will last the entirety of their medical career.
- UME has relaunched Mission Statement Day (Foundations Week - Friday) with a dynamic keynote speaker and support from the London & Middlesex YMCA. Distributed Education has relaunched Community Day (Foundations Week - Wednesday) with student visits to four local community hospitals and ten different community sites.
- Details are being finalized for the "Meet and Greet" planned for Windsor Program students on September 2, 2015. The Windsor Program team looks forward to welcoming the incoming Class of 2019 to the Windsor campus and hosting a special recognition event for Dr. Mark Awuku.
Alumni Relations and Development
- Welcome to Susan Stewart who has joined us on contract covering a maternity leave in the position of Development Associate. She comes to us from the Richard Ivey School of Business, but is not new to Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, having worked in the Department of Pathology for four years. And also to Jodenna Cambria is covering a secondment leave in the position of Development Assistant and brings not-for-profit and executive support experience to the role.
- Gift Highlights:
- $25,000 from the Sunlight Foundation to fund a scholarship in the Masters of Public Health Program
- $70,000 from Univet North America for the Undergraduate Dental Laboratory Renovation and another $10,000 for Continuing Dental Education
- $25,000 from Dr. Vladimir Hachinski and Mrs. Mary Ann Hachinski to fund a scholarship in the Masters of Public Health Program
