From the Desk of Dr. Quiñonez
Fall 2024
It’s a new academic year, and I couldn’t be happier. We are back!
Summer was a wonderful time for us at Schulich Dentistry. It signaled that our 2024 graduates were beginning their new life adventures, and the festivities could not have gone any better. We held our graduation luncheon at a new and beautiful location at Brescia College. The smiles and proud parents shined brightly, likely more than the sunny and air-filled space! What’s more, adjunct faculty joined full-time faculty up on the convocation stage, and all cheered the new doctors as they walked across the stage.
Summer was also a time for some rest, and let me tell you, it was well-earned. Staff and faculty worked tirelessly last year, and this was reflected this past April in a very successful accreditation visit from the Commission on Dental Accreditation of Canada.
We received the site visitor reports for all our programs and associated sites: Doctor of Dental Surgery, Advanced Standing Program for International Dental Graduates, General Practice Residency, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics, and London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care London.
The site visitors praised our renewed culture and the significant gains we have made since our last accreditation. Importantly, we have welcomed their recommendations, as they will undoubtedly help us to further improve our programs.
We are now working and will continue to work in the coming months to implement the required changes and report back to the Commission, as well as begin our preparations for next year’s Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP) review, as required by the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance. As we are coming to appreciate, accreditation processes never end!
Finally, we are lucky to have our new cohort of students in all our programs. We are proud to welcome them to the Schulich Dentistry family and will aim to instill in them the value of being of service and striving to be the best.
~ Carlos
Carlos Quiñonez, DMD, MSc, PhD, FRCD(C)
Vice Dean and Director of Dentistry
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
Western University
