Gerry Cooper, Associate Dean

Welcome back to our faculty, students, preceptors and standardized patients.

With the start of another school year, comes the launch of new projects, the beginning of a four-year journey for our Class of 2017, and continued learning and growth for our second, third and fourth year students.

We were excited to get this year underway and we're so pleased to do so with a newly developed orientation week. By all reports, the changes that were made were very well received: from the presentations at White Coat Ceremony, to our own Meet & Greet event, students and faculty had a chance to experience new things and develop what will likely be life-long relationships. If you haven't already done so, you can visit the photo gallery highlighting different images from Orientation week, and you can download your own White Coat Ceremony photos by visiting the School's flickr account.

I have also had the pleasure to meet our newest Class and I look forward to continuing to get to know you more in the year ahead.

This new school year has become more complicated in the past few weeks due to the labour disruption at the University of Windsor. Our program has been impacted as our professional staff are currently on strike. We continue to work with our colleagues in London to minimize the impact and we fully are committed to providing our students with the best learning experience regardless of the disruption. I want to thank our students for their patience as some minor changes have had to be made to schedules and class locations. I also want to acknowledge and recognize the commitment of our faculty who continue to work with us and our students. We will continue to make information available to students and faculty through email, social media, the website and the YouMe Blog.

As I look forward to the year ahead, I am energized by the plans that lay before us. Accreditation is underway and the team in London continues to move forward full steam ahead on the work. An Accreditation article in the newsletter will provide you with more details on this project which is critical to our program. I encourage you read all the materials being distributed on Accreditation and get involved where possible.

This issue of the newsletter also introduces Erica Hoe, who will serve as this year's Vice President for the Hippocratic Council. Erica will provide regular messages through the newsletter as a way to keep you up to date on all the students' activities.

I look forward to providing you with more updates directly by email and in future newsletters.

In the meantime, please enjoy the newsletter and take a look at a number of articles regarding changes to the School's Global Health Office, the production of a new calendar for the Windsor program and some changes to our hospitals in this community. Have an enjoyable autumn.