munmed - Faculty of Medicine
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munmed - Faculty of Medicine
MUNMED Faculty of Medicine winter 2012 vol. 24 no. 4 MUNMED news Message from the Dean Cover photo: The new building, which will house the medical education expansion and the Genetics Centre, is going up rapidly. 2 MUNMED In November 2011 we began the process of mapping out the direction the Faculty of Medicine will take in the next three years. Our Strategic Planning Retreat filled me with pride at what we’ve done so far and excitement about what lies ahead. Coming out of the retreat, some key objectives and requirements were identified. An expanded MD class, starting in 2013 as our new building is completed, will see class size grow from 64 to 84, including 60 seats for students from Newfoundland and Labrador. In conjunction with this, there will be a major expansion of rural medical student accommodations by 2015. The postgraduate residency programs will need to be increased to 90 plus in 2017 to match the expanded output of the 84 medical graduates in 2017. In order to produce more practice-ready physicians sooner we have already expanded the residency program to 80 entry positions, with the help of new federal funding and other sources. Our target is to produce more physicians for Newfoundland and Labrador, especially physicians who are willing and able to practice in rural areas. We have already begun the process of enhancing rural medical education through the Rural Medical Education Network (RMEN). We will continue to have a high percentage of students from rural areas being admitted to medical school, and to provide a rural medical education component for each of the four years of the curriculum. We are in the process of developing a new curriculum that will build on our strengths and will allow students in clerkship MUNMED is published by the Division to spend almost the entire year outside of St. John’s developing of Marketing and Communications stronger community relations. Our rural program also includes and the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial a stronger partnership with New Brunswick, which will allow University of Newfoundland. our New Brunswick students to spend almost their entire clerkship in their home province. Editor: Sharon Gray We will work hard to develop a culture of scholarship in Graphics and layout: Jennifer Armstrong all that we do, from education to research. Our new building Photography: John Crowell, Terry Upshall will consolidate all the genetics programs under one roof, from patient care to biomolecular research. As the move is made ISSN: 0846-4395 to the new building, existing space in the Health Sciences Centre will need to be redeveloped to allow expansion in other Contact: research areas. Sharon Gray There is no doubt that the next three years will require [email protected] hard work to meet our goals, but I know that there is the 709 777 8397 willingness and ability among our faculty and staff to ensure this happens. The plans are in place and we are moving ahead Printed by MUN Printing Services as quickly as possible. I want to thank everyone for their 010-595-02-12-3400 participation in our strategic planning process and encourage you to stay involved in the important changes going on in the www.med.mun.ca Faculty of Medicine. MUNMED news Dr. Bob Miller was presented with the Family Physician of the Year Award by Dr. Norah Duggan, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador College of Family Physicians, and Dr. Rob Boulay, past president of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Family Physician of the Year When Dr. Bob Miller first came to Newfoundland for a three-month locum in Baie Verte, he didn’t suspect that most of his career would be spent in this province. Flash forward 36 years to September 2011 when Dr. Miller was presented with the Family Physician of the Year Award by the College of Family Physicians of Newfoundland and Labrador. “What’s special about this award is that it went to an academic family medicine physician,” said Dr. Miller, who recently stepped down after 10 years as chair of the Discipline of Family Medicine. “It validates what I’ve been trying to do for 40 years as a teacher and it is a credit to what we have achieved as a group in the discipline.” Bob Miller grew up in Timmins in Northern Ontario and went to the University of Western Ontario with the idea of pursuing an education degree. After two years studying organic chemistry, he knew he didn’t want to work in a laboratory and became interested in becoming a doctor. He put his application in to medical school when he was 19 and was in practice by age 24. Growing up in the north, the only type of doctor he knew was the family doctor, so that became the path he followed. As a clerk he spent two weeks working with Dr. Bill Frazer in Galt, Ont. (now the city of Cambridge), Western’s first outreach medical clinic. After a rotating internship in Western Canada, he returned and joined the new practice in Galt. “From day one we had students in the practice, we built student accommodations and students from Western came and lived there. We also had family medicine residents in the building.” As the city of Galt grew, Dr. Miller decided to move his family to a more rural location at Sharbot Lake, 500 km north of Kingston, an economically depressed area of rural Ontario. “This was really a rural practice and we met Peter Bell, also a graduate of Western, who was another visionary in terms of rural practice. Dr. Bell developed one of the early multi-service centres which later became the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team.” Meanwhile, Dr. Miller had applied for a faculty position at Memorial, and when he came for an interview he was impressed by the rugged beauty of St. John’s as well as the vision of members of the Discipline of Family Medicine such as Drs. John Lewis and John Ross. Dr. Miller was originally hired to work at the Shea Heights Community Health Centre, but when he arrived at Memorial in August 1983 he ended up taking over Dr. John Ross’ practice while Dr. Ross spent a year reviewing Cottage Hospital placements. Meanwhile, the new chair of Family Medicine, Dr. John Forster, was undertaking a redevelopment of the Shea Height Centre, and hired Bob’s wife, Dr. Cheri Bethune, who had a background in social work. Continued on page 8 3 MUNMED news Awards ceremony honours family doctors The Fall Medical Education Forum, which combines the Family Medicine Community Preceptors’ Meeting with the annual Scientific Assembly of the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, was held from Sept. 28-Oct. 1 at Marble Mountain Lodge in Steady Brook. The forum began with small group teaching workshops for preceptors, followed by a Town Hall Meeting with Dean James Rourke. Separate development sessions were held for preceptors and for residents and students, with the groups combining to give feedback. An Awards Dinner was held Sept. 29. Dr. Bob Miller received the Family Physician of the Year Award from the College of Family Physicians of Newfoundland and Labrador (see page 3). Dr. Richard Lush (Class of 1999) of Grand FallsWindsor received the Dr. Craig Loveys Teaching Award, given annually by the Discipline of Family Medicine to a specialist in recognition of excellence in teaching family medicine residents. In presenting the award to Dr. Lush, assistant dean for the Rural Medical Education Network, Dr. Mohamed Ravalia, recalled that when he first came to Newfoundland, Dr. Loveys often presented continuing medical education and he was a, “wonderful raconteur and great mentor.” In Grand Falls-Windsor, Dr. Lush’s diverse portfolio includes emergency medicine and dialysis, as well as being the director of cancer care and an advocate for cancer care in central Newfoundland. In accepting the Dr. Craig Loveys Teaching Award, Dr. Lush said it’s a pleasure working with family medicine residents, and he is pleased to now see some on staff. Dr. Lynette Power (Class of 1996) of Burin received the Dr. Yong Kee Jeon Award, awarded annually to a family physician for excellence in teaching family medicine residents. In presenting the award, Dr. Mohamed Ravalia remembered that in 1984, Dr. Jeon welcomed him to Newfoundland with the words, “It is so good to see a fellow brown person.” He said Dr. Power has been working in Burin for 13 years and in, “her quiet and unassuming way she’s been a part of Memorial.” The Dr. Gus Rowe Teaching Award went to Dr. Peter Rogers (Class of 2001). This award is presented each year by the Family Medicine Residents to physician teachers in the program who are exemplary physicians, laudable teachers, and have an interest in sharing those aspects of his or her skills and ideals which are particularly pertinent to good family practitioners. Dr. Graham Worrall of Glovertown and Dr. John Ross (deceased) of St. John’s received Lifetime Achievement Awards in Family Medicine Research from the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Two Awards of Excellence from the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter of the College of Family Physicians of Canada went to Dr. Roxanne Cooper and Dr. Ian Simpson. Dr. Cooper has brought cervical screening on the road in rural Newfoundland with a Mobile Pap Clinic. The clinic is a 31-foot mobile trailer which her husband Byron converted into a two-room travelling pap clinic. Dr. Simpson received an Award of Excellence in recognition of his community involvement in environmental activism and his leadership in fighting to ban cosmetic pesticides in Newfoundland and Labrador. Clare Bessell and the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Perinatal Program received an Award of Recognition in recognition of her passion and dedication in teaching the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics Course for many years. This course has been given to many family doctors, mid-wives, nurses, medical students, residents and air ambulance employees and the course has been taken on the road to Goose Bay, Grand Falls-Windsor and St. John’s. Dr. Richard Lush, left, accepted the Dr. Craig Loveys Teaching Award from Dr. Mohamed Ravalia. 4 MUNMED news Dr. Lynette Power of Burin received the Dr. Yong Kee Jeon Award, presented by Dr. Ravalia. Dr. Ian Simpson of Corner Brook accepted an Award of Excellence from Dr. Charlene Fitzgerald, president elect of the Newfoundland and Labrador College of Family Physicians. Clare Bessell, nurse educator with the Provincial Perinatal Program of Eastern Health, accepted an Award of Recognition from Dr. Norah Duggan. Dr. Roxanne Cooper received an Award of Excellence for her work in bringing cervical screening on the road in rural Newfoundland with a Mobile Pap Clinic. 5 MUNMED news Special groups get together at forum The Fall Medical Education Forum provided an opportunity to meet up with new and familiar faces. Among the special groups attending the 2011 forum were doctors from Nunavut, members of the Rural Medical Education Network and medical students with an interest in family medicine. Memorial University is working with Nunavut to establish the NunaFam program to help train family medicine residents, in response to Nunavut’s ongoing challenges to recruit and retain family physicians. Doctors from Nunavut involved in this project were at the Fall Medical Education Forum. From left: Dr. Tim Doty, family doctor; Dr. Priya Gaba, director of maternal health; Dr. Sandy MacDonald, director of medical affairs; Dr. Madeleine Cole, director of medical education; and Dr. Tommy Hall, a family doctor now in practice in Torbay, who worked for two years in Nunavut. Members of the Rural Medical Education Network team include (from left): Minerva Cramm (Grand FallsWindsor), Tina Dwyer and Maureen Kent (St. John’s), Dr. Mohamed Ravalia (Twillingate), Dr. Blaine Pearce (Clarenville), Dr. Erin Smallwood (Corner Brook), Dr. Karen Horwood (Happy Valley-Goose Bay), Lavinia Chin (Corner Brook), Dr. Dennis Rashleigh (Corner Brook), Dr. Carmel Casey (Gander), and Nancy Avery (Clarenville). Medical students took an active part in the 2011 Fall Medical Education Forum. Among those attending (from left): Gordon Stockwell, Lesley Smith, Chris Dwyer, Jillian Follett, Will Stokes, Nicole Stockley and Andrew Baird. 6 MUNMED news MUN med students raise money for national scholarship Memorial’s Family Medicine Interest Group (FMIG) tied for first place in raising money for the 2011 Walk for the Docs, an annual event sponsored by the Canadian Family Physicians of Canada’s Research and Education Foundation. Funds from the walk support The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) Medical Student Scholarship Program. Four FMIG teams raised over $4,000 – Memorial, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and McGill. The competition was so close – less than $40 between the two top teams – that a decision was made to split the $1,000 prize, awarding $500 each to Memorial and Manitoba. Trophy rights will be shared also, with it having a home at each university for six months before Walk for the Docs 2012 in Toronto. The trophy comes to Memorial in May. This year’s five km run/walk was held on Nov. 5 in Montreal, Que., as part of Family Medicine Forum 2011. The event raised almost $40,000, a third more than in 2010. A record 16 FMIG Walk for the Doc participants took a hike up Marble Mountain during the Fall Medical teams competed in this year’s event, with 238 Education Forum, raising money for the national event. walkers. Six MUN students and three faculty members participated in the national Walk for the Docs. Preparation for the Walk for the Docs began in September when medical students attending the Fall Medical Education Forum in Steady Brook raised $3,500 – helped considerably when Dr. Marshall Godwin issued a challenge to participants at the forum to donate at least $50. “The amount we raised at the forum far surpassed my expectations,” said Nicole Stockley, a second-year medical student and representative on Memorial’s FMIG. “The medical students and interested doctors at the forum held a hike up Marble Mountain in preparation for the Walk for the Docs.” Family Medicine Interest Groups are groups run by medical students for medical students which offer a variety of student activities to assist in providing improved awareness and understanding of the opportunities, roles and responsibilities of family medicine. At Memorial, regular activities include Fridays with Family, hour long sessions with speakers. “We get about 80 students at each session,” said Ms. Stockley. “We have excellent support from the Discipline of Family Medicine and from our faculty advisers, formally Dr. Catherine Stringer, now Dr. Stephen Lee.” Ms. Stockley and Gordon Stockwell are the second-year representatives on Memorial’s FMIG. Sarah Small and Sara Dalley are the first-year representatives; Liam Fardy and Shannon Rourke are the third-year representatives; and Matthew Ryan and Kathie Thomas are the fourth-year representatives. Carolyn Arbanas is the first-year treasurer and Lesley Smith is the secondyear treasurer. 7 MUNMED news Funding increased for MRF grants It will be a banner year for grants from the Medical Research Fund (MRF), thanks to top-up funding from the Faculty of Medicine. Normally three development grants in the amount of $10,000 each are distributed annually. This year Dean James Rourke has agreed that the Faculty of Medicine will allocate money to the MRF in order to increase this to five $20,000 research awards in 2012. “The need for pilot project research grants was identified as one of the keys in increasing research success during our Strategic Planning Retreat,” said Dr. Rourke. “From this the Faculty of Medicine will be working on an action plan to enable research success including increased funding for pilot project research grants.” Following the Strategic Planning Retreat, held Nov. 29-30, Dr. Rourke met with the chair of the MRF board, Dr. Bruce Van Vliet, and they discussed ways to make an immediate impact on research funding. Dr. Van Vliet noted that the usual awards of $10,000 each do not go far towards the costs of developing contemporary research programs. Dean James Rourke “It is also a modest sum relative to tremendous resources that our faculty puts into the process – in the past year applications were assembled by 13 teams and were subjected to detailed review by a committee of five faculty members.” The formal announcement of the 2012 competition for the development grants will be made in January, with the deadline for applications in March. The Medical Research Fund (MRF) is a research endowment fund established by Memorial University of Newfoundland to assist the Faculty of Medicine in its objectives of developing and maintaining research excellence to meet the needs of the province and its people. The MRF holds two research grants competitions each year and is dedicated to making quality research and health initiatives a reality for our community. Since 1992, the MRF has supported more than 50 research projects through Research Development Awards and the Cox Award. More than $1 million in research funding has been disbursed. MRF awards provide critical support for the development of health science research projects, often enabling new ideas and collaborations to be developed to a point that they may attract major funding from external granting agencies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. For further information on MRF awards, or tax-free donations to the endowment, please visit www.med.mun.ca/mrf/. Continued from page 3 “We saw the potential for Shea Heights to develop into a model practice in primary health care and teaching, and that’s what happened,” said Dr. Miller. Meanwhile, the family medicine section of the first-year medical studies program was under review and Dr. Miller worked on changing the format of 10 one-hour lectures to a program of small group teaching, based on the model developed at McMaster University. He and Dr. Bethune also revised the curriculum on sexuality. Looking back over his career at Memorial, Dr. Miller said he has done many jobs in the medical school, including chairing the Clerkship Committee, and the Undergraduate Medical Education Studies Committee, as well as serving as assistant dean for Continuing Medical Education. In 2001 he took over as chair of the Discipline of Family Medicine. When Dr. James Rourke was hired as dean of medicine in April 2004, it was an opportunity to push forward with developing Memorial’s leadership in rural 8 medicine. “We are recognized nationally for training rural doctors, we are really good at what we do,” said Dr. Miller. “Now we are expanding rural electives and residency training in Newfoundland and Labrador and also helping to establish family medicine residency training in Nunavut.” Looking back at his time as chair of the Discipline of Family Medicine, Dr. Miller is particularly proud that he was able to get Dr. Marshall Godwin to return to Memorial and establish the Primary Healthcare Research Unit. Dr. Miller’s philosophy of family medicine centres on patience. “As a family doctor you need two basic skills – the patience to listen and the time to educate. Unlike surgeons and emergency medicine doctors, the family doctor has to sit back and not jump in too soon – we often have to work at finding out what patients do have. You need the ability to listen and form a relationship so you can learn what’s going on.” MUNMED news Small investments lead to large benefits For the past two decades, the Medical Research Fund (MRF) has supported researchers in the Faculty of Medicine with operating grants and awards. Although the amounts are not large – generally from $10,000 to $30,000 – these awards can lead to important results and success in obtaining federal funds for further research. Dr. Jane Green received a $25,000 Dr. A.R. Cox Award in 2006 for a study on inherited juvenile macular degeneration in Newfoundland and Labrador. “This funding was used to identify mutations (gene changes) in Newfoundland families with Stargardt Disease, a severe early-onset hereditary eye disorder, and to interview family members about the impact of this disease on their education, employment, and family life.” The MRF funding enabled Dr. Green and her research team to partner with Genome Canada funding, which substantially increased the research that could be done. The results were significant. “We identified mutations in members of 20 families in the province, who may now be able to participate in up-coming trials for gene therapy to improve their vision,” said Dr. Green. Many other researchers in the Faculty of Medicine credit the MRF funds with providing invaluable help just when it was needed. Dr. Bruce Van Vliet, who has received several MRF grants for his research, said the money has provided critical support at many points. “The funding allowed us to do important work at the time and also helped us build our experience and expertise to a point where we can now make our most exciting research findings.” Dr. Guang Sun is enthusiastic about the benefit of the Medical Research Fund. “I received MRF funding for my lab in 2002, the second year of my faculty position. I desperately needed seed funding to obtain preliminary data. The MRF helped me in part to succeed in the success of my first CIHR operating grant application in 2003. The CIHR funding directly led to the discovery of 45 obesity related genes, which has been highly valued by national and international researchers in the field of obesity study.” For Dr. Ken Kao, funding from the MRF in 1998 led to publishing an important paper that was critical for renewal of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research operating grant. Other researchers have found MRF funding essential early in their career. “The MRF funding helped to develop my research in a new area and I was subsequently able to get another $500,000 in CIHR funding,” said Dr. Sudesh Vasdev. “The kind of bridge funding provided by the MRF is always needed.” Dr. John McLean knows from experience the value of MRF funding. “In 1996 I received an operating grant of $25,000, which provided me with bridge funding and enabled me to keep my research going so I could obtain preliminary data for my next external grant proposal.“ Dr. Christopher Kovacs also appreciates the value of his MRF grant in 1998 in developing his career. “The MRF award is not an amount that you could operate a lab on but it is enough to get a smaller project done in a year, or to get pilot data in order to justify a larger project and grant application. Certainly data generated with the MRF was used as preliminary data in my first – and successful – MRC (now CIHR) grant application. And I’ve been continuously funded by MRC/CIHR since then so the MRF definitely helped to jump-start my independent work at a key time in my early career. Without it, I could have been stuck not getting my first MRC grant for lack of data, and running out of start-up funds with little hope of getting additional data for a resubmission. I wish there were more funding awards available like MRF to enable pilot studies to be done, or to use as bridge funding when an investigator’s grant doesn’t get renewed but there’s a likelihood of renewal if a year or so can be spent getting additional data.” The Medical Research Fund (MRF) is an endowment fund established by Memorial University of Newfoundland to assist the Faculty of Medicine in its objectives of developing and maintaining research excellence to meet the needs of the province and its people. Dr. Van Vliet, chair of the board of the MRF, said the awards from the MRF are providing payoffs in the development of the Faculty of Medicine’s research programs. “These awards increase our ability to develop our programs and bring large grants into the institution and province. The important results produced by these research programs benefit us all.” For further information on MRF awards, or tax-free donations to the endowment, please visit www.med.mun. ca/mrf/. Dr. Jane Green’s research on hereditary eye disorders has been supported by MRF funding. 9 MUNMED news Lessons from down under When it comes to rural medical education, Newfoundland and Labrador has a lot in common with Australia. Especially with the Rural Clinical School at the University of Western Australia, where innovative rural medical education programs have been developed that include the use of virtual patients. Dr. Moira Maley is a medical educator with the Rural Clinical School at the University of Western Australia and she spent six weeks last fall at Memorial sharing information on teaching methods and programs with members Dr. Sharon Peters, Dr. Moira Maley and Steve Pennell. of the Faculty of Medicine. Like Newfoundland and Labrador, Australia faces problems with recruiting and retaining doctors in rural areas. “We’ve found that long-term immersion for a full academic year in a rural area is most effective in drawing doctors back to practice,” said Dr. Maley. “It gives them a positive experience so they know there are good opportunities and a good quality of life in rural areas.” The Rural Clinical School of Western Australia was established in 2002 with the explicit goal of attracting more doctors to regional, rural and remote practice. Dr. Maley said the successful growth of the Rural Clinical School is largely due to Dr. Campbell Murdoch’s vision and leadership. “We can take a virtual patient scenario developed for Australia or elsewhere and repurpose it for use in Newfoundland and Labrador.” “Professor Murdoch realized that rural doctors have a huge wealth of experience,” she said. “He kept about 40,000 file cards during his career and developed a framework based on analysis of this data. His practice of collecting file cards for every patient he saw is one of the reasons we’ve been able to follow communities over time.” The program at the University of Western Australia delivers clinical education to medical students in a variety of rural and remote settings. “The rural medical education context has provided unique opportunities to work with highly motivated teachers and students,” said Dr. Maley. During her time at Memorial, Dr. Maley worked with Dr. Sharon Peters, vice-dean, and Steve Pennell, manager (health education technology and learning), with Health Sciences and Information Media Service. Of particular interest was the use of virtual patients in medical education. “Our goal is to create virtual patients based on rich data,” said Dr. Peters. “We can take a virtual patient scenario developed for Australia or elsewhere and repurpose it for use in Newfoundland and Labrador.” When using a virtual patient, a medical student or resident plays the role of a health care professional treating a computerbased simulated patient. “We are starting to work with the Integrated Study of Disease course for first-year medical students and use narratives, based on the clinical experiences of the students in Australia, to write scenarios for virtual patients,” said Mr. Pennell. Dr. Peters noted that these scenarios can allow students to use problem-solving techniques. “Often you will see case studies where the diagnosis is already given; we’re offering cases where there could be three diagnoses.” Through collaboration with other universities like the University of Western Australia and participation in the International Virtual Medical School, Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine is benefiting from research around the world that will expand and improve the experience of distributed learning for medical students in Newfoundland and Labrador. 10 MUNMED news Medical Teacher Scholar Program offers new opportunities For faculty interested in learning more about teaching and scholarship in medical education, the Medical Education Scholarship Centre (MESC), in collaboration with Professional Development and Conferencing From left: Dr. Steve Shorlin, Patti McCarthy and Dr. Vernon Curran Service (PDCS), now offers a Medical Teacher “This program offers further formal education in the area Scholar Program. Nine faculty members started of medical education,” she said. “I think it is a very valuable the one-year program last fall; after successful completion they program. It’s informative with many practical applications for will be appointed as a teaching scholar with MESC for two the medical educator. The course is providing me with tools to years. enrich skills in medical education development and research. The program was developed by Dr. Vernon Curran, It also provides an opportunity to interact and share ideas director of academic research and development and professor with colleagues who are also interested in medical education. of medical education in the Faculty of Medicine, with Dr. Dr. Barton Thiessen, Anesthesia, is also enrolled in the Steve Shorlin of MESC and Patti McCarthy, formerly of Medical Teacher Scholar Program. “I decided to take this MESC and now with the Discipline of Family Medicine. “We held several focus groups with faculty from different program as I figured it would be a relevant extension of the disciplines and also surveyed other similar Canadian programs earlier coursework I had taken in medical education,” he said. “This series of workshops complements the theoretical in developing our own program,” explained Ms. McCarthy. underpinnings of the Certificate in Medical Teaching, “There’s a growing appreciation for the importance of the and allows us to bring our practical experiences teaching scholarship of teaching and learning in medical education at undergraduate and postgraduate students.” a number of medical schools, many of which are adopting Dr. Thiessen noted that since all nine participants come the broader definition of scholarship that extends beyond from different medical specialties, the shared experiences lend teaching and learning to include discovery and knowledge themselves to valuable teaching tips and suggestions, with Dr. application in medical education as well.” Curran’s scholarly direction tying it all together. Dr. Curran said that the Medical Teacher Scholar The Medical Teacher Scholar Program is designed to Program has been incorporated with the existing Certificate encourage the professional development of clinical teachers Program in Medical Teaching, which has been offered and increase their expertise in developing educational for a number of years under the auspices of Professional programs and taking on leadership roles in medical education. Development and Conferencing Services in the Faculty of The appointment as a medical scholar with MESC does not Medicine. Seminars for the scholar program are held once a carry a stipend and the faculty member is not expected to take month for two hours on topics such as educational research on extra work, but they do have to continue to demonstrate methods, designing a scholarly research project in medical that they are engaged in scholarly activities in medical education, clinical teaching techniques, and giving effective education. feedback. A number of faculty members are involved in For the first offering of the program, discipline chairs teaching the program based on their individual expertise. were asked to nominate faculty members to participate. “This program fulfills the need for clinical educators to “The individuals work out how to get themselves engaged get specialized training in scholarly teaching techniques and and actively involved in educational research,” explained Dr. scholarship in medical education,” said Dr. Shorlin. Curran. “While the program is not mandatory, it will be of Dr. Tanis Adey, Psychiatry, is one of the faculty members help to clinical faculty interested in promotion and tenure.” taking the Medical Teacher Scholar Program. She said she For further information on the Medical Teacher Scholar enrolled because she really enjoyed and benefitted from the Program, visit http://bit.ly/medicalteacherscholar. Certificate in Medical Teaching (Medicine 6100) offered by Dr. Curran. 11 MUNMED news Scholarship and Awards Luncheon On Nov. 22 the annual Scholarship and Awards Luncheon for first- and second-year medical students was held in the Faculty of Business Administration Atrium. A total of 60 awards were presented, including two outstanding teacher awards. Dean James Rourke brought greetings to donors and recipients and briefly described the upcoming expansion of the medical education program and research growth. Each academic year, first- and second-year medical students select the person they consider to be the most outstanding teacher in that year. The Class of 2014 selected Dr. Shakti Chandra for the Outstanding Teacher Award. The Class of 2013 selected Dr. Alan Goodridge. The following awards were presented at the luncheon. For photographs and full descriptions of the awards please visit http://bit.ly/scholarships2011. Medical Entrance Awards Patrick Fleming – Frank and Pat Fagan Family Scholarship for Academic Excellence and Community Leadership. Mr. Fleming also received the Morris & Graham Wilansky Memorial Award. Campbell, Troy Climans and Janet Roberts. Lee Horgan – Dr. Peter Grant Memorial Scholarship. Emily Copeland – Dr. H.D. Roberts Prize in Pharmacology. Shannon McCarter – Dr. Wulf Grobin Memorial Scholarship. Andrew Bennett – Dr. J.B. Roberts Memorial Scholarship. Marc Kawaja – Dr. J.H. King Memorial Scholarship in Medicine. Dayna Butler – Rural Community Visit Prize. Kelly Monaghan – Dr. Brian Gerard Adams Memorial Bursary. Katrina DeZeeuw – First-year recipient of the Medical Practice Associates Scholarship for Academic Achievement. Jennifer LeMessurier – Ryan Family Scholarship. Megan Dawe – Gina Blundon Memorial Scholarship. Keelia Farrell – Dr. Leonard Miller Award. Julia Curtis – Gina D. Blundon Memorial Bursary. Megan Dawe and Chat Petten – Firstyear recipients of John M. & Elsa S. Morgan Scholarships. Cait Button – Dr. Peter and Mrs. Deborah Collingwood Scholarship in Medicine. Heather Hoddinott – Dr. Abdalla M. Hanna Memorial Bursary in Medicine. Jamila Belhadjsahah – Dr. Kevin Keough Medical Entrance Scholarship. Erica Kelly – Gordon Mercer Rural Medicine Bursary. Preclerkship Awards Alysha Sears – Dr. John M. Darte Memorial Award for first year. Tyler Mercer – Dr. John M. Darte Memorial Award for second year. Heather Stone –Walter Davis Award. Kayla Churchill – Isidor Epstein Memorial Scholarship. 12 David Harnett and Bolu Ogunyemi – Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association Awards. Chris Dwyer – Faculty of Medicine Opportunity Fund Scholarship. David Watton – Pathology Prize. Dr. Mary E. Pederson Scholarships in Medicine were awarded to Caroline Barry, Beth Ellen Brown, Ross Jessica Downing – Dr. Calvin N. Powell Bursary in Medicine. Sandra Cooke-Hubley – Inaugural Studentship in Physician and Medical Student Health and Well-Being. Rebecca Titman – Surgery Prize in Anatomy. Ms. Titman was also the winner of the 2011 Medical Student Research Forum. First-year medical students on the Dean’s List were: Chris Dwyer, Jennifer LeMessurier, Keelia Farrell, Katrina DeZeeuw, Rebecca Titman, Chad Petten, Megan Dawe, Shannon McCarter and Heather Stone. Second-year medical students on the Dean’s List were: Troy Climans, David Watton, Patrick Fleming, Jessica Downing, Beth Ellen Brown, Caroline Barry and Alexandra Maher. MUNMED news Katrina DeZeeuw, right, was the first-year recipient of the Medical Practice Associates Scholarship for Academic Achievement, presented by Sue Anne Oates on behalf of MPA. The second-year recipient, Alexandra Maher, was unable to attend the luncheon. Ms. DeZeeuw also received the Centenary of Responsible Government Scholarship. Jennifer LeMessurier, right, received the Ryan Family Scholarship, presented by Sister Perpetua Kennedy. This scholarship, valued at $1,000, was established by Mrs. Helen Ryan in memory of family members, Mary B.H., Thomas Sr., Thomas Jr. and Mary. The selection is based on scholarship standing in undergraduate medical studies. David Harnett, left, and Bolu Ogunyemi received Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association Awards, presented by NLMA President Dr. Sandra Luscombe. Selection for these awards is based on potential interest in the organizational aspects of the profession of medicine as demonstrated by participation in leadership roles within the medical school. Cait Button, centre, received the Dr. Peter and Mrs. Deborah Collingwood Scholarship in Medicine, presented by Peter Collingwood, left and Deborah (Templeton) Collingwood. This scholarship has been established through a generous gift from Peter and Deborah Collingwood. The scholarship will be awarded to students who are citizens of Canada and residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, who are entering their first year of the MD Program in the Faculty of Medicine and meet the criteria of scholarship standing as defined by the Faculty of Medicine. The scholarship is renewable for one year provided the candidate maintains scholarship standing. 13 MUNMED news Childhood obesity: Do gut hormones matter? Two graduate students in the Faculty of Medicine have received $5,000 from the Janeway Children’s Hospital Foundation to investigate the role that appetite and energy regulation gastrointestinal (GI) hormones play in the development of childhood obesity. PhD student Farrell Cahill and first-year M.Sc. student Danny Wadden, under the supervision of Dr. Guang Sun, are currently investigating the influence of the GI hormones peptide YY, pancreatic polypeptide and ghrelin in the development of obesity and diabetes within the adult Danny Wadden and Farrell Cahill. Newfoundland population. They are now widening their research focus to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes. “The World Health Organization approximates that globally there are 43 million overweight children under the age of five,” said Mr. Cahill. “This is especially relevant for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador considering it has one the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in Canada.” A 2010 report released by the Canadian Diabetes Association found that nine per cent of the population of Newfoundland and Labrador was diagnosed with diabetes, resulting in a fiscal burden of $254 million per year. “By the year 2020 it’s estimated that over 14 per cent of our population will be diagnosed with diabetes at a cost of approximately $325 million per year,” said Mr. Cahill. “Our interest in obesity is of critical importance considering that excess adipose (fat) tissue accumulation is associated with various co-morbidities such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and various types of cancer which are being found at earlier and earlier stages of life,” explained Mr. Wadden. “The GI secretes various hormones that regulate the functions of digestion, absorption and appetite through the gut-brain axis. However, the role of these gut hormones in the development of childhood obesity and diabetes is largely unknown.” Mr. Cahill and Mr. Wadden believe their work may help to increase the understanding of childhood obesity and the development of co-morbidities such as diabetes. A total of 200 families with at least one obese child will be recruited from the Newfoundland and Labrador population. For more information on participation in their study please contact Farrell Cahill or Danny Wadden at 709 777 8661 or by email at [email protected]. White Coat Ceremony The 10th annual White Coat Ceremony took place Oct. 28 in the main auditorium of the Faculty of Medicine. This ceremony has become a formal tradition of receiving new undergraduate students into the medical profession by presenting them with short white coats. Following speeches and the presentation of short white coats, the Class of 2015 recited the Oath of Geneva, led by professor emeritus Dr. William PrysePhillips. For more detailed coverage of the 2011 White Coat Ceremony visit http://bit.ly/ whitecoatceremony2011. 14 First-year medical students reciting the Oath of Geneva, led by Dr. William Pryse-Phillips. MUNMED news Discipline of Emergency Medicine established Dr. Tia Renouf is chair of the new Discipline of Emergency Medicine and she is enthusiastic about the work ahead in building the discipline. As scientific chair for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) 2011 in St. John’s she brought together globally renowned professors of emergency medicine and for the first time since CAEP’s inception, rural medicine and emergency ultrasound were dedicated tracks in the conference. “I will use this enthusiasm for learning and research to carry the momentum forward,” said Dr. Renouf. “Emergency medicine has come a tremendous way from when we were casualty officers at the Grace Hospital. It has grown and matured to being an independent discipline.” Dr. Renouf said an important goal is to develop a Royal College program in emergency medicine as well as the existing one-year of specialty training in emergency medicine offered through the College of Family Physician’s Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program. An exciting new direction in emergency medicine is the use of ultrasound. Dr. Andrew Smith has been working closely with Dr. Renouf on training in the use of ultrasound in emergency medicine. Both emergency departments in the St. John’s region have recently obtained training centre designation from the Canadian Emergency Ultrasound Society and over the past year Memorial University has partnered with Dalhousie University and the other Maritime provinces to form the collaborative Atlantic Point of Care Ultrasound research group. Over the past two years a rigorous bedside ultrasound training program has been implemented for local ER physicians and those working outside St. John’s. Dr. Renouf has always worn two hats: emergency physician and rural physician, and she feels that urban physicians often do not understand the unique pressures of being on the front line as a rural doctor. “The challenge for doctors working in rural areas is to maintain proficiency. I know from my own background in emergency and rural medicine that I was sometimes afraid of forgetting my emergency skills. Now there are better ways to serve rural physicians and their patients through innovations like ultrasound.” Another research project for ER is being conducted by Drs. Kris Aubrey and Dick Barter. They are working on a decision rule that will assist clinicians with the decision to order a CT scan in patients with suspected renal colic. Dr. Renouf (Class of 1984) has a solid background in emergency and rural medicine. Following a residency in internal medicine in Edmonton, she did locums on Bell Island and in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Labrador then joined the staff at Western Memorial Hospital in Corner Brook. She then moved to Nova Scotia; for several years she was an associate of Quinpool Family Medicine, an urban family practice in Halifax, while continuing to work weekends as a rural physician in Guysborough, Nova Scotia. “While associated with Quinpool Family Practice I did regular locums in rural medicine,” she said. “I also did locums in emergency medicine in Hamilton, Bermuda at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.” In December 1993 Dr. Renouf moved to Rota, on the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia where she was solo physician on an island of 5,000. “The nearest referral centre was 45 minutes away by plane on the neighbouring island of Saipan.” She has generally looked wherever the next challenge presents itself, finding many opportunities practicing medicine in unfamiliar cultures. Dr. Renouf ’s career took her back to Halifax and Bermuda as well as Nain and Iqaluit before she took a job as an emergency physician at Alice Springs Hospital in Australia. This led to her two-year job with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Central Australia. She then worked in Halifax where she served as a staff emergency physician at the QE2 and served as attending emergency physician for refugees from Kosovo as they arrived at Greenwood Military base. Since 2001, before being appointed chair of the Discipline of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Renouf was an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine and assistant director of the Emergency Residency Program. During this time she spent a month as a locum emergency physician in Jedda, Saudia Arabia, and twice served as the expedition physician on Antarctic expeditions. In July 2003 she was the expedition physician on Akademik Vavalov, a vessel circumnavigating Newfoundland and exploring the coast of Labrador. Subsequent jobs brought her to Greenland and through the Northwest Passage. She was ship-board physician aboard MV Keldysh as it brought travellers four miles down to the site of Titanic via Russian Submarine. Most recently she has trained with the Canadian Red Cross and anticipates working for brief periods with their Emergency Response Unit, a system of portable hospitals first deployed in Haiti after the recent earthquake. 15 MUNMED news New faces in administration Dr. Scott Moffatt Assistant dean Student Affairs Dr. Scott Moffatt is the new assistant dean of Student Affairs. Originally from Fredericton, New Brunswick he is a family doctor and an associate professor at Memorial. He is enthusiastic about continuing his work with medical students in his new capacity and acting as an advocate for them during their journey through medical school. “Medical school is an exciting and challenging time for students, however it can also be a time when students experience significant stress and at times personal difficulties. Dealing with issues early and directly, whether they are personal, academic or health related, often prevents these issues from developing into bigger issues.” Dr. Moffatt said, “We encourage students to take a proactive approach in addressing personal issues or a life circumstance and encourage them to contact us anytime if they need help working through things. Our door is always open”. Dr. Moffatt graduated from Memorial medical school in 1987 and as a medical student remembers that ‘’the Student Affairs Office, particularly Vera Griffin and Dr. Lloyd Mussels, were very kind to me and helped me jump a few hurdles along the way. I appreciated their genuine interest in me – and hope I can return this to today’s medical students here at Memorial.” The major challenge he sees within Student Affairs is maintaining a personal contact with students as the medical school grows. “In 2013 we’re moving to an expanded entry class of over 80 students, and with this increase in enrolment it will be important to maintain the personal atmosphere within the office where the students have a human face attached to them and not just a student number.” A second challenge on his radar is improving Memorial’s ability to support medical students doing rotations in distributed sites, both in Newfoundland and in New Brunswick. With more students doing rotations throughout Newfoundland and Labrador as well as New Brunswick, he sees a need to have a system in place that ensures that students are able to access support in learning environments that are often a distance from their homes, family and friends. The Office of Student Affairs offers students a range of personal, financial, academic and career counselling services 16 and support. “Through our Student Wellness Program we promote the development of a healthy student – and hopefully resilient future physicians – who lead healthy, productive personal and professional lives,” said Dr. Moffatt. Besides his clinical work as a family doctor and teaching responsibilities, Dr. Moffatt holds a variety of administrative positions in the Faculty of Medicine, including postgraduate counselor and family medicine undergraduate director. He has been the faculty lead at Memorial on the expanded medical education program in New Brunswick. Dr. Donald W. McKay Associate dean Undergraduate Medical Education Dr. Donald McKay is now heading up the Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME) Office. It’s a natural fit for him; he has a long history working out of the UGME office, serving as course chair many times and as pre-clerkship co-ordinator from 1998–2001 and as second-year co-ordinator before that. With the new curriculum being introduced in 2013, there are many challenges facing Dr. McKay and the staff of the UGME Office. “These challenges relate largely to change management and working with staff, faculty and students to achieve a high quality education program for our students to the ultimate benefit of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador,” he said. “Those visiting the UGME Office will notice many new faces among the staff and see a reconfiguration of the office space, a change that we hope that the students and faculty will find welcoming and usable.” Dr. McKay said that although the recent large turnover among the staff presents challenges with respect to the learning curve for routine responsibilities of the office, the turnover is beneficial in terms of office staff members understanding and accepting that this is a time of considerable change. “With the upcoming curricular changes, upcoming accreditation processes, changes in accreditation requirements, planned increase in class size, the changing needs of our New Brunswick partners and the increased expansion of our program beyond the overpass, our office staff fully understand that change is our new normal.” The UGME Office is a service office, noted Dr. McKay. “We provide service for our students and faculty, but we receive direction from the Undergraduate Medical Studies MUNMED news Committee (UGMS) and the Office of the Dean. Our office is responsive to many of the LCME/CACMS accreditation standards that guide our MD program – our job is to execute the directions of UGMS within the confines of accreditation requirements.” Dr. McKay earned his PhD in animal sciences (physiology) at Michigan State University and first came to Memorial in 1981 as a post-doctoral student. In 1983 he joined the Division of BioMedical Sciences, becoming a professor of physiology in 1998. In 2007-2008 he served as associate dean, Research and Graduate Studies, and from 2010-2011 he was first person to hold the position of assistant dean, Graduate Studies (Medicine). For a brief period in 2011, he held the position as interim associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies before taking on the role as associate dean for Undergraduate Medical Education. Dr. McKay has served on the University Senate since 1996. His past administrative roles in the Faculty of Medicine include pre-clerkship co-ordinator and chair of the physiology subject committee and currently chair of the BSM I course. He has served four times on the LCME/CACMS Accreditation Survey team, twice as team secretary. Dr. Proton Rahman Associate dean Clinical Research As the new associate dean for clinical research, Dr. Proton Rahman wants to further enhance medical research at the Faculty of Medicine by establishing a core shared infrastructure for health related research and facilitate the development of numerous strategic interdisciplinary research teams. “This will be accomplished by working closely with the dean, the associate dean for research and graduate studies and various funding authorities and partners,” said Dr. Rahman. “I also hope to engage more colleagues in scholarly activity, especially that which is important to the local community and of national and international caliber.” Dr. Rahman is a clinician scientist at Memorial University. He is a professor of medicine at Memorial and staff rheumatologist at Eastern Health. He completed his medical school and internal medicine training at Memorial University and rheumatology fellowship at the University of Toronto. His graduate training in genetic epidemiology was also done at University of Toronto. He joined the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial in 1999. Dr. Rahman is very active in genetics research, and has identified several novel susceptibility genes in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, as well as new genetic markers for disease progression and pharmacogenetics in inflammatory rheumatic disease. Dr. Rahman has also initiated various large scale interdisciplinary projects such as the Newfoundland Genealogical Kit. This work was completed through collaboration with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information, IBM, the Discipline of Genetics and numerous investigators at Memorial. His has published widely in top subspecialty based genetics and rheumatology journals and his contribution to rheumatology research has been recognized with regional, national and international awards. Dr. Atamjit Gill Chair Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dr. Atamjit Gill took over as chair of the Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynecology on Jan. 1 2012. He is an associate professor and urogynecologist and co-clinical chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology with Eastern Health. Dr. Gill said there are two main challenges facing the discipline in the near future. “We need to expand our services to accommodate the increasing number of students from the medical school expansion. Our discipline has taken the lead in the development of community satellite centers, such as Grand Falls and Corner Brook – however a lot is still needed to be done.” The second major challenge Dr. Gill identified is the introduction of simulator based learning to foster professional development and enhance residents’ learning in communication and collaboration skills. Since he joined the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial in 1995, Dr. Gill has served in a number of administrative capacities, including undergraduate co-ordinator for obstetrics and gynecology (1995-1998); undergraduate clinical skills co-ordinator for obstetrics and gynecology (1985-2001) and clerkship co-ordinator (September-December 2006). He served as residency program director for obstetrics and Continued on page 23 17 MUNMED news New faces of faculty Dr. Cathy Murray Assistant professor Endocrinology Dr. Cathy Murray has joined the Discipline of Medicine after completing an endocrine oncology fellowship at the University of Toronto. She earned her MD at Memorial in 2005 and began her internal medicine residency at Memorial from 2005-2008, after which she did her final two years of residency training in endocrinology and metabolism at the University of Toronto. She is in the process of completing a M.Sc. in clinical epidemiology at Memorial. Dr. Murray’s research experience include a study of low prolactin as an indicator of true growth hormone deficiency in adults, and a 20-year single Canadian centre follow-up of acromegalic patients. Dr. Murray has also done research on the effect of attending a Diabetes Education Centre on medication utilization in the elderly in Ontario. While doing her residency at Memorial she reviewed pancreatic tumours in the MEN1 (multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1) Burin kindred. In 2010 Dr. Murray presented her work on diabetes medication utilization at the Canadian Diabetes Association Professional Conference. She is an author on numerous publications, including a 2011 article on Overt immune dysfunction after Cushing’s syndrome remission: a consecutive case series and review of the literature, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Dr. PETER DALEY Assistant professor Medicine Dr. Peter Daley is the new regional medical microbiologist with Eastern Health and an assistant professor cross-appointed to the Disciplines of Laboratory Medicine and Internal Medicine. His specialties are infectious diseases, tropical medicine, medical microbiology and molecular microbiology. Dr. Daley earned his MD in 1998 at Dalhousie University and finished his residency training in 2002. In 2003 he earned a diploma in tropic medicine and hygiene at 18 the Gorgas Memorial Institute in Lima, Peru. Dr. Daley’s first career was in research – he worked in India on tuberculosis research from 2005-2009, while also serving as a part-time assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont. Epidemiology was a key aspect of his tuberculosis research in India, and Dr. Daley is currently pursuing a M.Sc. in clinical epidemiology at Memorial. Dr. Daley is an author on numerous peer-reviewed publications, largely in the area of tuberculosis. He is a member of the Stop TB Partnership New Diagnostic Working Group. He has also authored five book chapters in four books in the areas of tuberculosis and infection control. Dr. linda bohacek Assistant professor Surgery Dr. Linda Bohacek is a general surgeon with a special interest in endocrinology. She earned her MD in 2004 from the University of Toronto and did her general surgery residency at Memorial from 2004-2010. The following year she completed an endocrine surgery fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Bohacek is the first author on a paper published in June of 2011 in the Annals of Surgical Oncology on the diagnostic accuracy of surgeon-performed ultrasoundguided fine needle aspiration of thyroid nodules. She has also published on robotic thoracoscopic mediastinal parathyroidectomy for persistent hyperparathyroidism, and on advanced laparoscopic training and outcomes in laparoscopic cholescystemectomy. She is interested in pursuing further research in endocrinology, particularly the epidemiology of multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN), an inherited disease which results in over activity and enlargement of certain endocrine glands and eventually thyroid cancer. She would like to develop a database for the population of MEN patients in Newfoundland and Labrador. Her interests also include endocrine surgery and devising systems for the national standardization of surgical outcome data. In her clinical work, Dr. Bohacek would like to introduce ultrasound as a routine procedure in head and neck clinics. In terms of teaching, she wants to see a curriculum component introduced on endocrine surgery. MUNMED news Dr. Danielle O’Keefe Assistant professor Family Medicine Dr. Danielle O’Keefe is a familiar face around the Faculty of Medicine but recently became a geographic full-time faculty member, based at the Family Medicine Clinic at the Torbay Road Mall in St. John’s. She joined the Family Medicine Program as a locum in July 2008 and has been there since, taking on the role as program director for family medicine in January 2012. Dr. O’Keefe (Class of 2005) holds a diploma in clinical epidemiology and is in the process of completing a M.Sc. in clinical epidemiology. Her research, done through the Primary Healthcare Research Unit, involves the ElderCare Study. She is looking at whether the nursing intervention utilized in this study resulted in a change in the use of community resources and self-assessment of health. She has accepted the Family Medicine Evidence Based Medicine Scholarship for 2012, which will involve course work at Oxford University and developing and conducting a research project. Dr. O’Keefe enjoys research. As a family medicine resident she undertook a research project on childhood obesity and the role of family physicians in helping to deal with this growing problem. She also participated in medical research through the Patient Research Centre on the impact of health care restructuring in Newfoundland and Labrador. She collaborates on ongoing research with the Primary Healthcare Research Unit through her involvement with the Discipline of Family Medicine. Dr. O’Keefe’s postgraduate academic commitments include teaching residents and being a member of the Family Medicine Residency Postgraduate Executive. At the undergraduate level she is involved with teaching clinical skills to first- and second-year medical students. She is also the co-ordinator for the Day in Violence teaching workshops for second-year medical students. Dr. Stephen LEE Assistant professor Family Medicine As one of two geographical fulltime faculty members with the Family Medicine Clinic at the Torbay Mall in St. John’s, Dr. Stephen Lee is part of the expansion of off-campus sites that includes increased capacity for residency training. Dr. Lee said the clinic can take two residents at a time, and he is excited about teaching and supervising residents. The clinic also includes faculty member Dr. Danielle O’Keefe and fee-for-service physicians Drs. Rosann Seviour and Christine Bassler. Dr. Lee enjoys having a busy clinical practice which includes house calls for palliative care patients. Dr. Lee earned his MD at Memorial in 1989 and went on to do a rotating internship at Dalhousie University followed by locums in Newfoundland and New Zealand. He worked as a generalist with the Waterford Psychiatric Hospital from 1992-1993 then completed one year of a general pathology residency at the University of Ottawa. From 1993-1996 he was a family physician in Ottawa and from 1997-1998 he was a drug reviewer for the AIDS/Viral Diseases Division of the Health Protection Branch, Health Canada. He obtained his Certificate of the College of Family Physicians in 1997 and became a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians in 2008. In 1998 he moved to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, where he worked for seven years as a family physician. In 2007 he moved to St. John’s where he worked as a family doctor, with occasional locums in the Northwest Territories. Dr. Lee said he is looking forward to doing some research in family medicine; he is the lead author of the 1996 publication External Cardioversion-Related Cardiac Damage, published in Cardiovascular Pathology. 19 MUNMED news Members of Team Broken Earth on their last mission to Haiti. Haitian relief efforts forging stronger bond with Memorial In February a group of 30 health care professionals from Memorial University and Eastern Health were in Haiti on a continuing mission to provide medical assistance to a country ravaged by an earthquake two years ago. The earthquake levelled the capital city of Port au Prince, killing 200,000 people and leaving more than a million people homeless. Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Andrew Furey, an assistant professor of surgery at Memorial, headed up the team. The February trip was his fifth medical mission to Haiti, and the fourth trip for Team Broken Earth, a volunteer team of physicians, nurses and physiotherapists. In addition to medical care, Team Broken Earth wants to provide education to the Haitian people so that they can develop their own health system towards a North American standard. “We’re doing that by providing education on the ground, both formally and informally, and our plan is to bring some Haitians to Memorial’s medical school as well for two or three weeks,” said Dr. Furey. “We’d like this to be an ongoing partnership where we’re able to provide education and ultimately they’ll be able to advance their own healthcare system.” Memorial’s dean of medicine, Dr. James Rourke, joined Team Broken Earth, for a week during February. “We’ve had phenomenal support from Dr. Rourke,” said Dr. Furey. “The Faculty of Medicine helps fund any resident or professor we take.” And now MUN’s medical students want to take it further by having a formal elective set up for Haiti. Dr. Furey said once this is approved, one or two medical students per year could apply and spend a week in Haiti after preparing by doing various rotations in St. John’s. The Haiti elective could also be used as an epidemiology research project. Dr. Furey said as far as he knows, this relationship between Memorial and Haiti is the only one in Canada.“Of all of the medical schools in Canada there is none that we are aware of that have developed this relationship with a third-world nation to the point where the medical school is looking at making this a formal elective for some of the medical students so that they will go down and use this as time to train. As we develop this program and continue to lead medical schools across the country, we look forward to others, like the University of Calgary Medical School, following our model.” For further information on Team Broken Earth, visit www.brokenearth.ca/about.html. 20 MUNMED news Faculty bookshelf Belle Maro By Marshall Godwin Imagine that the Beothuk people did not entirely die out, but lived among Newfoundlanders and had children. What would those children think about their mixed heritage? Author Marshall Godwin, a family doctor and professor in Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine, uses the setting of his home town of Belleoram to weave a fascinating story around the question of whether or not Beothuk blood flows in the veins of Newfoundland people. Belle Maro is a sweeping historical novel that traces three centuries of cross cultural contact and relations between the Beothuk and the European settlers who came to Newfoundland. The story is largely set in the community of Belle Maro, now known as Belleoram, in Fortune Bay. Starting in 1966 in Belleoram with the discovery of a skull by two boys, the story travels back to 1812 and the arrival of some early settlers, one of whom is connected to a Beothuk woman who was abducted and brought to England at the age of 10 in 1758. The story also encompasses the lives of a small group of Beothuk in the 19th century, the rape and pregnancy of a Beothuk woman by a white man, and the fate of that child and his ancestors. Belle Maro is a story of love, a story of struggles and conflicts and a story of vengeance. It is also a story of a sacred mountain, of two treasure chests, and how the treasures of two peoples reflect the difference in their values. Belle Maro is published by DRC Publishing, St. John’s. edge of time by Susan M. MacDonald This dynamic science fiction novel is aimed at young adults, but it’s a good read for anyone who enjoys fantastic adventures. For two teenagers, their lives are turned upside down when they find themselves being hunted to death by pan-dimensional beings that travel the universe and devour weaker worlds. But help is at hand from the Tyron Collective – a secret intergalactic agency concerned with maintaining the balance between self-direction and interference. For teens Alex and Riley, the rescue initially seems more like imprisonment as they learn to harness power they didn’t know they had. It’s a race against time to save themselves and the world. Author Susan MacDonald is an associate professor of family medicine, and she obviously had a great deal of fun writing this first novel. Newfoundland serves as home base for the group trying to protect Earth from destruction because it is situated between the two main locations of Potentials: Ireland and Canada. The Potentials are humans with a genetic mutation that enables them to resist the mind control the Others employ. One of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy, Orson Scott Card, praises this novel. “It’s the best kind of story – kids with troubles of their own suddenly find themselves the targets of assassins while even weirder people claim to be protecting them. And Susan M. MacDonald is the best kind of writer – she drops you into the middle of the action and makes you care what happens so you can hardly stand to put the book aside until you’ve finished.” Edge of time is published by Breakwater Books. 21 MUNMED news Alumni news Class of 1987 Dr. Ann Colbourne has been selected by the Mayo Clinic as the latest recipient of its Plummer Society Award for Excellence. The division chief of General Internal Medicine in the Edmonton Zone of Alberta Health Services was honoured for her outstanding and unique contributions to practice, education, research and administration in internal medicine. Dr. Colbourne’s clinical passion is diabetes care with an emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. Since 2007, the Mayo Clinic has presented a Plummer Society Award for Excellence every two years to an outstanding member of its alumni association; Dr. Colbourne is the first Canadian physician to receive it. She currently leads an initiative that uses e-technology to deliver health services, expertise and information to insulin pump patients in Newfoundland. Class of 1988 Dr. Carmel Casey was the doctor for the Canadian team at the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece, which ran from June 25 to July 5. She shared some photos from the trip with MUNMED. Dr. Casey with the two Newfoundlanders on Team Canada. In the middle is Jackie Barrett, a power lifter from Corner Brook, who won three gold and one silver medals and set a world record in the squat. On the right is Michael Harris of Gander who competed in athletics and won a silver medal as part of the men’s 4x100m relay team. Dr. Casey and Gander track athlete Michael Harris sightseeing at the Parthenon in Athens. Class of 1993 Dr. Ian Dawe has been appointed physician-in-chief at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores). Dr. Dawe joins Ontario Shores from St. Michael’s Hospital where he was the medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Service and a research associate with the Keenan Research Centre of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital and the Arthur Sommer Rotenberg Chair in Suicide Studies at the University of Toronto. After earning his MD at Memorial, Dr. Dawe did his residency in psychiatry, two years of fellowship training (suicide studies, emergency psychiatry and mental health systems research), and a master’s degree in health administration, all at the University of Toronto. His clinical and research areas of interest include emergency psychiatry, quality and patient safety, population health, health advocacy, and the design and evaluation of mental health delivery systems. 22 MUNMED news private Scholarship funds being set up for son of alumni Last August Christopher Davis, the 11-year-old son of Dr. Kay Bennett (Class of 1996) and Dr. Randy Davis (Class of 1987) died when he fell over a cliff in Bay Roberts. Kay’s sister Kelly is also an alumni (Class of 1992). The family has established two scholarship funds. To donate to the Christopher R. Davis Memorial Foundation, which will make annual charitable donations to registered charities to help save and enrich children’s lives, contact McEachnie Group Private Wealth Management at Suite 201-80 King St. South, Waterloo On N2J 1P5; or call 1 888 886 2360 ext. 232 or email russell.mceachnie@ investorsgroup.com. To donate to the Christopher Davis Memorial Fund within the St. John’s-Kilmarnok School, which will support a scholarship and bursary, literacy and outreach, contacting Kathryn Jeffrey, director of development at 519 648 2183 ext. 21, or by email to [email protected] or go online to make your tax-deductible donation to canadahelps.org, search SJK. iN MEMORY Dr. Gordon Hutchings, Class of 1977, died Nov. 10, 2011. He leaves to mourn his wife, Carmel Flynn-Hutchings and children Michelle Hutchings-Jiwa (Dr. Al Jiwa), Mary Andrea Hutchings and Gordon Flynn-Hutchings. Also grandsons Shakil and Rafik Jiwa, brother Dr. Reg Hutchings (Gillian) in PEI and sister Sylvia Cumby (Reg) in NL. After medical school, Dr. Hutchings worked at hospitals in Buchans and Grand Falls then spent three years in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, working in Arab hospitals. Back in Canada he worked in the French community of Kapuskasing in Northern Ont. In 1993 he became diplomat with the Canadian Embassy in Hong Kong. In the fall of 1997 he moved to Trenton, Ont. and worked in the Emergency Department at the Trenton Hospital. Continued from page 17 gynecology from June 1998-Sepbember 2001 and resumed this responsibility from January 2009-December 2011. Dr. Gill has received numerous awards including the 2007 D.W. Ingram Award from the Class of 2007; the 2006 Educator of the Year Award from the Association of Professors in Obstetrics and Gynecology of Canada; the 2004 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Association of Professors in Gynecology and Obstetrics and Department of Women’s Health at Memorial; and the 1996 Excellence in Resident Education Award from the national Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Gill has contributed to curriculum development and education in numerous ways. Since 2010 he has been the organizer and preceptor of a suture workshop for the full class of clinical clerks during orientation week. He arranged finances to have software purchased for photo colposcopy capture, and collaborated with the Department of Pathology to develop combined colposcopy/pathology rounds to enhance resident learning. He started laparoscopy teaching labs for resident learning in minimally invasive surgery and introduced teaching associates in training clerks for pelvic exams. Dr. Gill is an active researcher. He designed a reusable pubovaginal sling device for minimally invasive pubovaginal sling procedures and has a patent in process for this device. He is continuing research on the pubovaginal sling, and is also involved in a pilot project with Dr. Daniel Fontaine on self pap using a self-collection device. 23 MUNMED news Local health research benefiting from library’s Open Access Author’s Fund By Shannon Gordon Public services librarian Health Sciences Library In the fall of 2011, MUN Libraries launched the Open Access Author’s Fund. Available to all MUN faculty, instructors, staff and graduate students, this initiative is relevant to MUN researchers in disseminating their findings in open access (OA) journals having author processing fees. To date, several articles written by faculty in the Faculty of Medicine, and schools of nursing and pharmacy have benefited from this fund. Examples of where these colleagues are publishing include: BMC Emergency Medicine, BMC Family Practice, BMC Pharmacology, Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice, Human Resources for Health, and Journal of Medical Case Reports. Can you benefit from the fund? You too may be able to benefit from this recent initiative. Author processing fees, which largely exist as a way to recover publication costs, exist for some OA journals. Major OA publishers charging this fee include BioMed Central (BMC), Hindawi, and Public Library of Science (PLoS). Also known as author processing charges, or page fees, author processing fees range from $150 to $3,000, and are charged to the author when a paper has been accepted for publication. Fortunately, MUN Libraries has special memberships with BMC, Hindawi, and PLoS, and if your manuscript is accepted by one of them, MUN Libraries will be invoiced directly for your author’s fee. This means no financial cost to you as the author. If your manuscript is accepted by another publisher’s open access journal, your article may still quality for funding. Learn more Several OA workshops took place across campus during the fall of 2011. Scheduling a customized OA workshop for your department or group is possible. To learn more, contact Shannon Gordon at [email protected], or visit http://tinyurl. com/88o4n76. Med students think globally Medical students at Memorial have formed a Global Health Interest Group. The group has ambitious goals, including implementing a global health elective into the medical school curriculum and establishing a partnership with a developed country for overseas electives for students in third and fourth year. Activities so far include holding a student-run symposium last November and participating in activities to raise money and publicize World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. Two documentary screenings are planned for the winter semester on issues in global health. They plan to implement an advocacy campaign for pertinent issues affecting refugee and immigrant health and have a fair trade advocacy campaign in collaboration with the Fair Trade Campus Coalition, a coalition between social justice groups on campus whose main purpose is to advocate towards fair trade on campus. Some of the medical students involved in the Global Health Interest Group are: sitting (from left) Megan Richards, Emilia Bartellas, Theresa Lee and Will Stokes; standing (from left) Allison Pridham and Paula Cooper. 24 MUNMED news Of note Canagasundram Anandakrishnan of Grand Falls-Windsor was honoured as the Canadian Dermatology Foundation Practitioner of the Year 2011 at the Canadian Dermatology Association’s annual meeting in Edmonton, Alta., June 2011. Dr. Ian Landells, president of the Canadian Dermatology Association, said that Dr. Anandakrishnan, “… embodies all that is good in Canadian dermatology. His desire to maintain his clinical acumen and academic knowledge base has been exceptional. For over 20 years Dr. Ananda, as we call him, has delivered excellent clinical care in the Central Health Region of Newfoundland and Labrador, primarily in a solo practice. He is an example to us all.” After immigrating to Canada in 1984, Dr. Anandakrishnan completed his residency in dermatology at the University of Toronto in 1989. By December of that year, he was an active member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador and, to this day, is a highly respected and popular lecturer at Memorial University. commitment to the welfare of patients and to high standards of excellence in clinical care and ethical conduct. In addition, the award recognizes physicians who have acted as role models to both medical residents and colleagues alike. Dr. Bartellas moved to Canada in 1974 after the Turkish invasion in Cyprus in 1974 and repeated his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Memorial University. Since 1981 he has been teaching and practicing obstetrics and gynecology in St. John’s. From left: Dr. Neil Shear, president of the Canadian Dermatology Foundation, recipient Dr. Anandakrishnan, and Dr. Ian Landells, nominator. Former MUN grads in the audience managed to get a picture with Dr. Bowmer. From left: Drs. Karen Fung Kee Fung, Meredith Marks and Anne McCarthy. Unavailable for the photo was Dr. Barbra Power. Dr. Elias Bartellas, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, has been selected by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as Mentor of the Year for 2011 for the Atlantic Region. The Mentor of the Year award, conferred annually in five regions across Canada, acknowledges medical specialists who have demonstrated a long-standing Dr. Ian Bowmer, current president of the Medical Council of Canada and former dean of Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine, presented the first annual Ian Hart Lecture on Nov. 23, 2011 at the Department of Medicine Grand Rounds at the Ottawa Hospital. His talk was titled International Medical Graduates – a National Resource; are we assessing the right competencies? Dr. Kara Laing, a medical oncologist at the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre and associate professor of oncology, has been named by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons as Specialist of the Year for Newfoundland and Labrador. Dr. Laing received her MD from Memorial University in 1993, completed an internal medicine residency 25 MUNMED news Of note at Memorial, medical oncology training at the University of British Columbia, and a fellowship with the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Clinical Trials Group. She is currently involved in the treatment of patients with breast cancer and central nervous system malignancies. She is the clinical chief of the Cancer Care Program, head of the Provincial Systemic Therapy Program, co-chair of the local Medical Advisory Committee of Eastern Health and is the president-elect of the Canadian Association of Medical Oncologists. Dr. Melissa Langevin, who completed her pediatrics residency at Memorial in June 2011, was selected as one of two recipients of the 2011 Resident Leadership Award from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The leadership award was for her significant contribution to Memorial’s Pediatric Simulation Program during her residency. Dr. Langevin was one of two recipients of the 2011 Resident Leadership Award, established to recognize a resident who has demonstrated leadership in Canadian specialty education and encourage the development of future leaders in medicine. As the recipient of this award, Dr. Langevin attended the National Resident Leadership Summit in Quebec City and was presented with the award Sept. 24. Dr. Langevin is presently doing a pediatric emergency fellowship at CHEO, a pediatric health and research centre in Ottawa. From left: Dr. Jonathan Sherbino, Dr. Melissa Langevin, Royal College President Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti; and Royal College Director of Education Dr. Ken Harris. 26 Dr. Sandeep Mangat of Placentia received the Dr. Irwin Bean Award at the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) Family Medicine Forum in Montreal in November 2011. The award, named in memory of the late Dr. Irwin Bean, CFPC president (1962-63) and the first chair of the CFPC’s Committee on Examinations, recognizes the individual who achieved the highest standing among practice-eligible candidates in the CFPC¹s Certification Examination in Family Medicine. Dr. Mangat, who has worked in Placentia for five years and is active in teaching medical students, is an international medical graduate who did her training in Canada through Memorial’s Clinical Skills Assessment and Training Program. Amit Negandhi, a master’s student in the Discipline of Genetics, received a travel award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Cancer Research. The award allowed him to attend the Canadian Cancer Research Conference held in Toronto Nov. 27-30 2011. At the conference, Mr. Negandhi presented his poster titled The Glu429Ala polymorphism in the MTHFR gene is an independent prognostic marker in colorectal cancer: Analysis of two independent cohorts from Newfoundland. Other authors in this study were Angela Hyde, Dr. Patrick Parfrey and Dr. Roger Green. Mr. Negandhi is supervised by Dr. Sevtap Savas, Genetics. Dr. Nigel Rusted, was among the 66 recipients of the Order of Canada announced in January. Memorial’s oldest living alumnus at the age of 104, he received the award for his contributions as a physician and surgeon in Newfoundland and Labrador over the course of seven decades. Dr. Rusted was in MUNMED news the inaugural class of Memorial University College in 1925 and received his diploma in arts and sciences in 1927. He attended Dalhousie medical school in Halifax, serving as health officer for two summers aboard the S.S. Kyle, which visited more than 50 communities along the Labrador coast. During his career in surgery he worked and held executive positions at all four hospitals in St. John’s and served Memorial University on its first Board of Regents and its building committee. Dr. Marlene Shehata, who did her M.Sc. in medicine at Memorial, was presented with a Certificate of Excellence Award at the 2011 annual general meeting of Hypertension Canada. This award recognizes her efforts in promoting awareness of hypertension, managing and educating health professionals and the public on strategies to maintain blood pressures on target values. In 2007 she received the Horizon Award, the highest honour bestowed by Memorial University on young alumni with a record of extraordinary professional, community, alumni or academic achievement. Kerri Smith, a PhD student supervised by Dr. Ann Dorward, was awarded a $3,000 Teal Heart Scholarship in a national competition. This fellowship is awarded by Ovarian Cancer Canada for graduate students engaged in ovarian cancer research. Ms. Smith also received a travel award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Cancer Research to attend the Inaugural Canadian Cancer Research Conference held in Toronto in November 2011. Youlian Tzenov, a PhD student supervised by Dr. Ken Kao, received a travel award valued at $1,000 from the International Papillomavirus Society to attend the 27th International Papillomavirus Conference held in September 2011 in Berlin, Germany. He gave oral and poster presentations on his research related to the regulation of human PYGOPUS2 by HPV16 and 18. He also gave a poster presentation on his research regarding the genes responsible for each stage of cervical adenocarcinoma. Mr. Tzenov said research presented at the conference spanned all 200 types of papillomavirus and all the diseases caused by these viruses. Mike Wahl, a PhD graduate student in the Faculty of Medicine, and co-founder of Definitions Wellness Safety Services, was named the Graduate Student Entrepreneur Global Champion by the Entrepreneurs Organization. The award was given as a specialized category within the 2011 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards. Mr. Wahl’s doctoral supervisors are Drs. Christopher Kovacs and Gerry Mugford. His thesis is on hormonal response to lifestyle in middle-aged overweight men. Over eight years ago, Mike Wahl and his business partner Mike O’Neil saw an opportunity to bring personal training services to the St. John’s market. They opened a fitness facility and built a respected brand and a solid client group. Many of his clients worked in the oil and gas sector and as they started seeing positive results, they asked him to bring his services to their offices and industrial sites including offshore oil rigs. Over the years the company’s focus has shifted to specializing in individual health, safety and wellness concerns for both individuals and companies. Mr. Wahl said the Graduate Student Entrepreneur Global Champion Award is a validation of the company and the teamwork that has gone into building a successful company. 27 MUNMED news MEDICOR papers being processed for Founders’ Archive The Faculty of Medicine Founders’ Archive is currently processing the papers of the Centre for Offshore and Remote Medicine (MEDICOR) collection, which came to the archive in early 2008. The material includes, but is not limited to, information about laboratory air and gas analysis, cold water immersion research, near drowning, hypertension, anaesthesia, the hyperbaric chamber, the royal commission on the ocean Ranger marine disaster, styrene, cilazapril, epinephrine, and various research projects. With the support of a National Archival Development Program grant (NADP), the archive has hired a contractual archival assistant, Sarah Farewell, to arrange and describe the collection to make it available for research use. As well as being relevant to those connected to offshore and remote medicine, the collection will be of particular interest to researchers in the areas of marine medicine, environmental medicine, offshore oil industry, occupational medicine, diving, related education and training, and environmental gas analysis. “The archive is grateful for the financial assistance, which provides contribution funding for archival projects to archival institutions,” said archivist Stephanie Harlick. “This funding is administered by the Canadian Council Sarah Farewell with some of the boxes of documents making up the collection of of Archives on behalf of Library and Archives Canada. MEDICOR papers. The project will be completed by March 31, 2012.” Retirement News George Beckett, associate university librarian (health sciences), had retired after 30 years of service. A well-attended retirement open house was held Dec. 7 at the Health Sciences Centre. George grew up in Burnaby, BC, and earned a bachelor of history degree from Simon Fraser University and a master of library science degree from McGill. In 1981, he began working in academic libraries at Memorial University in areas such as government documents, computer searching and systems before moving to the Health Sciences Library as systems librarian in 1989. In 1991, he became head of the Health Sciences Library as associate university librarian (health sciences). During his time as head of the HS Library he also served as acting director of the Marine Institute Library (1993-1994) and director of the Faculty of Medicine’s Health Sciences Information and Media Service from 1995 until 2008. In 1999, he led the creation of the Newfoundland and Labrador Health Knowledge Information Network (NLHKIN) and remained involved in developing library services for Newfoundland and Labrador and dealing with information resources in the digital age. He was actively involved with the Canadian Health Libraries Association from 1991 to 2004 and received that association’s 2004 Margaret Ridley Charlton Award for Outstanding Achievement and an Honorary Life Membership in 2010. In his spare time, George has a long history with the MUN Judo Club, and holds a second degree black belt. 28 MUNMED news Laboratory Medicine Resident Research Day Residents in the Discipline of Laboratory Medicine presented their research on Oct. 7, 2011. All residents in the program participated, many with both poster and platform presentations. There was a strong laboratory quality theme running through the presentations. Poster presentations included: Retrospective Analysis of Sign Out Times and Blocking for Autopsies by Dr. Robin Wirth; Immunohistochemistry Utilization at the Department of Pathology by Dr. Reza Alaghehbandan; Assessment of Gross Examination and Tissue Submission in Hysterectomy Specimens with Leiomyomata by Dr. Luis Gai; Evaluation of Block Numbers Submitted for Breast Specimens by Dr. Sarab Mohamed; Specimens of Limited or No Clinical Value by Dr. Terry Finch; Retrospective Analysis of Sign Out Times and Blocking for Autopsies by Dr. Robin Wirth and Placenta Submissions: Are The Appropriate Indications Being Met? by Dr. Kathryn Whelan. All poster submissions were under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Raab. The adjudicators for the platform portion of Resident Research Day were Drs. Sheila Drover, Jon Church and Ed Randell. Awards were received by Dr. Terry Finch for his presentation titled Cytological-Histological Correlation of Pulmonary Specimens at Eastern Health and Dr. Robin Wirth for his presentation titled Case Series: Reporting Two Cases of Accidental Deaths from Bench Pressing Weights in Home Gyms. Dr. Finch’s research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. C. Ghosh and Dr. Wirth’s research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. S. Avis. Most of the research has been submitted to international conferences for presentation. From left: Drs. Terry Finch, Beverley Carter, resident research co-ordinator, Simon Kirby, Reza Alaghehbandan, Kathryn Whelan, Robin Wirth, Luis Gai, Simon Avis, chair of the Discipline of Laboratory Medicine, Andrea Simmonds, Sarab Mohamed and Jane Barron, program director. News from pathology Dr. Nik Makretsov, an assistant professor of pathology at Memorial from 2008-2011, is first author on a landmark study in breast cancer biomarker immunohistochemistry quality control improvement, published in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine in July 2011. This was a panCanadian study led by the Canadian Immunohistochemistry Quality Control Program which also included pathologists and technologists from the University of British Columbia, University of Saskatchewan, McGill University and the University of Toronto. Two students from Memorial University were part of the national research team: Dr. Reza Alaghehbandan, pathology resident, and Joel Mercer, medical student. This study is about developing quantitative measuring of accuracy in breast cancer predictive markers testingsteroid hormone receptors (estrogen and progesterone) by immunohistochemistry – the pathology tests which define whether breast cancers patients will benefit from systemic endocrine therapy or not. There were 31 participating laboratories, four of which were previously designated as expert laboratories. Each participant tested a tissue microarray slide with 44 breast carcinoma samples for estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor and submitted it to the Canadian Immunohistochemistry Quality Control Program for analysis. There was a blind central panel assessment of all the laboratories against the proposed multiple reference values. Dr. Makretsov said the study demonstrated that the application of multiple reference methods allows for an objective assessment of estrogen and progesterone tests performance across the country. “The developed method allows measuring not only agreement, but also to obtain a snapshot of sensitivity and specificity of hormone receptor tests in the individual practical laboratories, which has never been done before in a systematic evidence-based way. It demonstrated that the most common disagreement with the standard results was due to a variable sensitivity of the estrogen receptor test, and not due to the test interpretation or test specificity. Dr. Makretsov said the study showed that an overwhelming majority of pathology laboratories nation-wide are able to achieve high level of agreement between each other and the expert laboratories, which exceeds the recommended threshold of 90 per cent agreement. “This also means that there is a potential to reduce currently acceptable 10 per cent disagreement rate between the participating laboratories through the revision of current practices and implementation of protocols from the best performing laboratories.“ 29 MUNMED news Study of rare patients yields important results One of the leading genetics researchers in the world, Dr. Michael Hayden, gave the 2011 Gairdner Lecture on Oct. 19 at the Faculty of Medicine. His presentation, Black Swans, Genetics and Drug Discovery, offered a fascinating journey through the world of genetic discovery. The black swan refers to the widely-held belief that all swans are white – until a black one appeared. The metaphor captures the concept that the event is a surprise to the observer and has a major impact. Dr. Hayden referred to the black swan as From left: Dean James Rourke, Dr. Michael Hayden and Dr. John Dirks, president and an outlier, lying outside the realm of regular scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation. expectations. In genetics, the black swan is the exceptional patient, the rare phenotype that allows the researcher to study genes that have a major effect. Dr. Hayden is the world’s most cited author on Huntington’s disease and he won the 2011 Canada Gairdner Wightman Award for his groundbreaking contributions to medical science. His work focuses on understanding the genetic roots of illness and using that understanding to develop better approaches to treatment for patients. He researches diabetes, coronary artery disease, and is part of a large collaboration to determine the genetic basis for adverse drug reactions in children. His lab has identified a gene, called ABCA1, which is critical for the production of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, also known as the good cholesterol. In Newfoundland, Dr. Hayden has worked with geneticist Dr. Jane Green to identify patients with congenital indifference to pain. He has been able to identify genetic variants unique to those individuals, resulting in understanding how pain sensitivity, and other functions, are regulated. The hope is that this pain research will soon yield a new drug that can target the gene to stop pain. New Family Medicine Clinic opens The Family Medicine Clinic located in the Torbay Road Mall, St. John’s, had its official opening Nov. 8, 2011. This is the fourth clinic operated through the Discipline of Family Medicine, joining the network of clinics at Shea Heights, the Ross Family Medicine Clinic at the Miller Centre, and the Family Practice Clinic at the Health Sciences Centre. The official opening provided an opportunity for everyone to celebrate. Dean James Rourke spoke about the expansion of the Faculty of Medicine and the importance of the new clinic in being part of that expansion. Dr. Marshall Godwin, interim chair of the Discipline of Family Medicine, said the clinic provided another place to teach residents. Cutting the cake (from left) are the doctors at the new Family Medicine Clinic: Drs. Danielle O’Keefe, Rosann Sevior, Christine Bassler and Stephen Lee. 30 MUNMED news Historical trials with LSD Although the drug LSD is known most widely as a recreational drug of the 1960s, it was used in the 1950s as a treatment for mental illness and alcoholism. Many of these experiments took place at the Provincial Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan. In November, Dr. Erika Dyck, Canada Research Chair in History of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, presented the Dr. Nigel Rusted lectureship in Medical Humanities on the topic Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD Experimentation and the PostSecond World War Pharmacological Revolution. LSD was first synthesized by the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman in the Sandoz (now Novartis) laboratories in Basel, Switzerland in 1938, although it was another five years before its Dr. Nigel Rusted and Dr. Erika Dyck. psychedelic properties were found. Dr. Dyck described coming across research about experiments in Saskatchewan – where she grew up – with LSD as a drug to understand schizophrenia and later, to treat alcoholism. Psychiatrists, including Humphry Osmond who coined the term psychedelic while working in Saskatchewan, believed that the successful treatment of alcoholism with biochemical means would scientifically prove that the condition was a disease and not the result of a weak or immoral character. Initial experiments demonstrated unprecedented rates of abstinence among alcoholics treated with LSD. The approach gained support from the provincial government, local chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Bureau of Alcoholism, all of which collaborated in a public campaign that supported LSD treatments. In the course of her research Dr. Dyck interviewed three men who had stayed sober for 40 years after being treated with LSD. She cautioned that the process of choosing patients, the settings and the clinical practice all played a part in these experimental successes. But as LSD spread out from the clinical setting onto university campuses and then into the wider population of North America, the media and the public began to turn against the drug. From promising early news stories about the great possibility of LSD, they turned to horror stories. Sandoz halted LSD production in August of 1965 after growing governmental protests at its proliferation among the general populace. Scientific study of LSD ceased around 1980 as research funding declined, and governments became wary of permitting such research fearing that the results of the research might encourage illicit LSD use. Dr. Dyck is the author of Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus. Clarification In the summer/fall issue of MUNMED, Dr. Bridget Picco’s column said that “This year’s CME had official Mainpro credits for the first time ever, for both specialist and family docs.” This should read: “The CME portion of our reunion is fully accredited for both Maintenance of Certification and Mainpro study credits for both specialist and family doctors. As well, Memorial has a reciprocity agreement between the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education of the United States (ACCME) and the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) which allows Category 1 credits toward the American Medical Association of Physicians Recognition Award (AMA PRA).” Nhu Ho, left, a master’s student in the cancer and development program, received the Mary O’Neill Award for the most outstanding research presentation at the M.Sc. level. Ms. Ho is supervised by Drs. Hélène Paradis and Robert Gendron. Philip Andrews, right, received the Mary Pater Award for the most outstanding research at the doctoral level. He is supervised by Drs. Ken Kao and Cathy Popadiuk. 31 MUNMED news Newfoundland CODING study has big impact at international conference It is hard not to be impressed by the performance of the research team of Dr. Guang Sun, professor of genetics in the Faculty of Medicine. They presented nine posters at the 29th Obesity Society annual meeting which took place Oct. 1-5 in Orlando, Florida. PhD student Farrell Cahill had three first author, two second author and three third author posters. Danny Wadden, an honours turned M.Sc. student, also attended with one first author poster and three second author contributions. Investigators in the team who made significant contributions include Drs. Ed Randell, Sudesh Vasdev, Wayne Gulliver and Yanqing Yi. Dr Sun’s Complex Diseases in the Newfoundland population: Environment and Genetics (CODING) study is an ongoing investigation regarding the endocrine, genetic and nutritional factors associated with obesity and diabetes. The discoveries presented covered a number of aspects of obesity. “The first aspect regards the appetite regulating hormones secreted by the gastrointestinal tracts – peptide YY and ghrelin – on the variations of human body fat accumulation, macro-nutrient intakes and insulin sensitivity,” said Dr. Sun. “Most findings are the first reports of their kind in the field.” A second aspect is the powerful effect of essential amino acids on human body composition. “The findings provided strong evidence about the possibility of lowering the rising prevalence of obesity in this province by simply increasing the percentage of essential amino acids to improve the health of Newfoundlanders and Canadians,” said Dr. Sun. The third aspect is the evaluation of a novel method to estimate body fat. Recently a new method called Body Adiposity Index (BAI) to evaluate body fat based on height and hip circumference was suggested by a group of researcher in University of Southern California. Dr. Sun’s team performed extensive analysis using the Newfoundland population based CODING study consisting over 2,400 adults. The study discovered that the bone system-based BAI equation generally performed better than BMI in people of normal and overweight. However the new BAI method performed poorly than BMI in obese people. “This is a serious problem for the BAI to be used in obese evaluation,” said Dr. Sun. “Our team is currently developing our own new method using the data from the CODING study. The new method is simple to use but more accurate than the traditional BMI method. “ 32 Back left to right: Farrell Cahill, Daniel Wadden, Dr. Edward Randell; front left to right: Hongwei Zhang, Peyvand Amini, Dr. Sudesh Vasdev and Dr. Guang Sun. The large number of presentations and findings from Dr. Sun’s team attracted numerous conference attendees. “Many researchers from U.S. and other countries expressed strong intention for potential collaborations,” he said. The Obesity Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting is one of the largest congregations of clinical and laboratory obesity researchers in the world. “This conference allowed us the opportunity to share our experience with laboratories from around the globe while also building new collaborative relationships for future research,” said Dr. Sun. In addition to their individual research project productivity, both Mr. Cahill and Mr. Wadden have made significant recruitment contributions to Dr. Sun’s CODING study. This study is one of the largest studies of its kind in the world, and has reached over 3,000 participants. “Although recruiting volunteers for research is difficult, it is an essential part of any research project,” said Dr Sun. “Our research could have never been recognized without the participation of our Newfoundland and Labrador volunteers.” The CODING study is presently exploring the genetic, endocrine, and nutritional links to obesity and diabetes within the province. Participation in this study involves participants giving a small blood sample and undergoing a Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) scan which measures bone density, muscle mass, body fat distribution. In addition to the CODING study, Dr. Sun and Mr. Cahill have begun a collaborative obesity treatment studying with the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation investigating the effects of resistance training on appetite regulating hormones. “Collaboration within and outside the province has always been an important aspect to my laboratory,” said Dr. Sun. “We currently have over 20 active collaborations, 15 of which are at Memorial University.” MUNMED news Stories from family Medicine Thump: the first lesson By Dr. Paul Patey The 10-year-old boy watches and listens intently. Thump, thump, thump, is the sound he hears coming from his slightly younger brother who is calmly sitting on my examination table. It’s a sound doctors often make and listen to when examining patients. It’s called percussion. Thump was also how today’s little medical mystery started. Yesterday, while wrestling, Barry’s foot unexpectedly struck Donald firmly in the belly. The thump knocked the wind out of Donald for a moment, but soon thereafter they resumed their wrestling, an activity they enjoyed and in which they often engaged. But now, a day later, Donald was still bothered by pain in his belly. His concerned parents sought my help as a family doctor. After listening to their story and acknowledging their concerns, I had, by this point in the visit, also finished much of the examination. I’d shown them how Donald’s belly wall in one spot was tender when tensed when he lifted his legs, but much less tender when relaxed, even when I pushed deeper. This indicated yesterday’s thump had bruised a bit of muscle. The rest of the examination was to rule out other troubles and document normalness. Now I say, “Lie down again Donald.” Turning to look toward his brother, who I know wants to someday be a doctor, I wiggle my finger and say, “Come Barry. Stand near. Listen. Watch.” He does. Barry observes as I place the middle finger of one of my hands flat against Donald’s chest on the right side. He observes how, by flexing my other wrist, I thump the middle bone in that flat finger with the tip of the middle finger of my other hand. We hear the thumps. Moving my hand down the patient’s chest I percuss another area nearer to the bottom edge of his rib margin. “Barry, can you hear that sound. Donald’s liver is under there. It has no air in it. Now let’s compare the sounds.” I make three thumbs over the liver, then three over the lung, and say, “Did you notice the difference in the sound over lung and over liver?” The boy nods. I repeat the percussions. He nods again. With a swift series of percussions running down the chest I identify where lung and liver meet and keeping my middle finger just below that level, to my student I say, “Listen how the sounds change when your brother takes a big breath.” I start percussing, ask the patient to take a big slow breath in and out, and continue percussing. The note changes during the breath cycle. To my student I say, “Did you notice how the sound changed?” Again the boy nods. I continue. “Before he breathes in I am thumping over liver. As your brother breathes in his lung gets bigger and his liver moves further down and then I’m thumping over lung. Then when he breathes out his lung gets smaller, and the liver moves back up, at which time I’m once more thumping over his liver. Listen again. ‘Donald take another big breath slowly in and out.’” I percuss continuously as the patient’s diaphragm muscle moves the interface between lung and liver down and then back up. The very young, very alert, medical student watches my percussing fingers and listens as the thumping sound changes during the breath cycle. “Now, Barry, go sit. I have a bit more to check yet. Donald, stand up on the floor, turn toward me.” As he does, I throw a little sheet over his shoulders, where it hangs down to the floor as he stands with his back to the audience. I say: “I need to look at your boy parts. Pull down your trousers.” He does. To mom I say: “Examining these parts is better done with the boy standing. Important causes of belly pain can arise from hernias or other troubles in this area. All is normal here.” My brief exam has found no hernias, testicular masses, congenital abnormalities and especially no torsion of the testicle. Turning to the reassured parents I say: “Normal. And the urine sample we obtained earlier is also normal. The pain should be no worse. The bruised muscle will heal in a few days.” To Donald I say, “Continue your normal activities, including wrestling next week with your brother. If you get the pain again, tell your parents. “ Turning to them I say, “Bring him back if necessary.” Finally, to the very young medical student I say, “Today you had your first lesson.” Comments • When he learns percussion in medical school will the scholar remember to percuss continuously through a breath cycle, rather than only at extremes as some physicians do? For me the continuing percussion gives better information. • During the visit, the little scholar learned many other lessons, including respecting the patient’s privacy and the parents’ concerns. • This visit was joyful for doctor, patient, parents and the medical student. • All names changed. 33 MUNMED news A frontwards view Ten years By Dr. David Keegan It is almost unbelievable that 10 years have gone by since I left Placentia. Ten years since I last staffed Placentia’s truly excellent three-bed emergency department, did my inpatient rounds in the 10-bed in-patient wing, saw patients on the secure dementia long-term care ward, and closed up my cherished Fort Frederick Medical Clinic, saying goodbye to my great staff and patients. In another way, I look back and think what has happened in those 10 years and it’s been a lot. I did a year of emergency training, worked in tertiary adult and pediatric emergency departments in London, Ont., and engineered my return to family medicine (I began missing long-term patient contact just a few short months into full-time emergency work). I got married to the love of my life, and we’ve had three great kids come into our lives. We decided on a new adventure and moved to Calgary. I started playing hockey and learned to ski. So in some sense, it seems that it was long, long ago that I practiced in Placentia. I remember Dr. Roger Butler (Class of 1977) teaching us interviewing skills almost 20 years ago and talking about his initial practice in Botwood and how it was a foundation for his whole career. I didn’t quite get what he meant then. But now I know what he was talking about. Those four years in Placentia were something truly special. It was in those years that I learned how to work in an interprofessional climate long before it was called that. The things I learned from Pat Careen, our outpatient nurse, were incredible – from wound care to how to discretely reflect back what I’ve heard a patient say. The unit we formed for our chemotherapy patients, our palliative patients, and a whole bunch of others was based upon respect for and the maximization of each others’ scope of practice. It was in Placentia that I got my 10,000 hours of reflective practice in; though I didn’t keep perfect track, I worked a range of 60–100 hours each week. It was in Placentia that I was faced with a wide variety of clinical challenges (typically in the ER) with only the cottage-hospital level of support, and then found myself building customized networks with specialist colleagues in St. John’s and Carbonear, who were not only supportive and helpful, but helped drive the expansion of my clinical skills and evidencebased practice in numerous ways. It was in Placentia that the patient-centred clinical method came to vibrant life in which each patient’s context had a massive impact on my assessments and in the 34 The Keegan family on top of the Columbia Ice Field in Jasper National Park. From left: Nora Keegan, Susan Bannister, John Keegan, David Keegan and Sarah Keegan. negotiation of an investigation and management plan. It was in Placentia that I experienced helping people with deeply hidden problems about which they finally felt comfortable to speak after being my patient for a few years, and the immense privilege and therapeutic power of the doctor-patient relationship was made so real to me. It was in Placentia that I learned a lot from my colleagues who were trained at Memorial and abroad. I learned tricks of the trade, as well as some crucial real world wisdom. (You can check out The Wisdom of Dan Malone, one of my previous articles published in the winter/spring 2010 issue of MUNMED.) It was in Placentia that I had the opportunity to work in so many different ways, including my own solo practice in which I got to work with great staff, particularly Laura Lannon, the licensed practical nurse in my clinic. It was also in Placentia that I think I became a true Newfoundlander/Labradorian and not just a townie. I have always loved St. John’s, but it was great to live outside it and smell (even more) the salt in the air and talk to people who had been resettled, and it was crucial to see first-hand the ugly impact of the collapse of the cod fishery. I felt so privileged to see the determination and spirit of the people in and around Placentia and the Cape Shore to make something happen. When I think back, those four years packed a punch and whatever doctor I am today, it is because of them. When I get in front of medical students, as I often do in my role as undergraduate director here at the University of Calgary, my best clinical stories are from Placentia. Students are on the edge of their seats whenever I teach about the wiry 70-yearold man who got swept off the Cape Shore during a gale into the ocean and got swept back up with seawater, spiders and twigs in his lungs. Not a pin drops when I talk about the patient with pneumonia for whom the best care was to just keep her comfortable (see my column in the spring 1998 issue of MUNMED titled The Rosary). And they are amazed at Continued on next page MUNMED news A backwards view An inside view By Dr. Bill Eaton I got a taste of bitter medicine early this January. I was home alone with a cold; I didn’t want to spread it around. While at the computer I suffered a central field visual defect in my right eye, a headache in my right temple and woozy head. I said to myself, “I better lie down,” so I did. Just after hitting the couch I said to myself, “I better get up,” but I couldn’t. My left arm and leg were useless. Out loud, but with a slur, I said, “I’ve had a stroke.” I slipped myself to the floor and wriggled to the cell phone. I guess I must have been upset or something because it took me four tries to get the thing unlocked. I was able to call my daughter to open the door so the 911 guys could get in and save me. Up to the HSC emergency, wheeled right into the CT room, rushed right back for bloods and the thrombolytic drug tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), a clot buster. Within 15 minutes my paralysis disappeared. Miracle drug that tPA. I apparently was the fastest person ever to get in for tPA at the HSC. Protocol dictates an ICU stay for 24 hours after tPA. Meaning you get woken up every hour for neuro testing. “Where are you?” “Bed five, ICU, HSC St. John’s.” “What day is it?” “Tuesday January 10, 2012.” After a few of these, when dragged up to consciousness, I would just give the answers without prompting. We patients make our own fun in the ICU. The nurses were like angels floating by in the permanent twilight. The doctors came by to give reports of tests and inquire about symptoms. The other patients were really sick and the privacy screens were anything but. I found it difficult to empty my bladder with the hustle and bustle a mere 10 cm from my personal exposure, standing up attached to monitor lines, tubes of the cyclically-inflating anti-embolic calf enclosures, and IVs. Fortunately for all concerned urine was my only ICU effluent. The monitor alarms blast out in seven different ways. All are designed, of course, to bypass the brain’s natural instinct to acclimatize. Sleep and toilets don’t coexist with ICU protocol. It’s no place for someone who’s not sick, like me, who post tPA felt fine. I apparently was the best looking patient in the ICU. At the bewitching hour: that time between lucidity and IV haldol, the patients around me articulated their location conclusions. One guy loudly irritated that he was in a funeral home. Another bemoaned his being in jail. I concluded they were both right. Timing is everything. At change of shift the relative calm shattered into a clamour and clatter of reports and administration, like who’s on first. The lights came up and the day begins. Enter the stroke team. The physiotherapists pushed and pulled my arms and legs and had me stand up. The occupational therapist did a rapid screening test for the detection of mild cognitive impairment and asked me to say as many words as I could beginning with F that weren’t naughty or names. I began with fiduciary and ran through fenestrate and funicular. The OT remarked she had never heard as many F words in one minute. Eventually the speech pathologist came by and had me swallow puddings and biscuits. I resisted the urge to fake a cough as she was my ticket to lunch. I can’t recall the last time I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. In the interim lunch had come and gone without me so I ate an HSC egg sandwich on a hamburger bun. Never in my life have I savored such a wonderful sandwich. Hunger makes a great sauce. Later that day I’m out and home and now must come to grips with what happened, what could have been, and what might yet be. I confess I’m scarred and scared. Timing is everything. I now take a statin and palvix, both of which cause nausea, dizziness and myalgias and I can’t drive for a month. I think I’ll buy a new guitar. I was treated with courtesy, caring, and respect by everyone I met. Dietary and housekeeping staffs were pleasant and supportive. Professional and efficient was the byword of my stay. The nurses were a bit offended when I suggested they were so nice to me because of who I am. “No we treat everybody like that.” I always knew it. I’m proud of the HSC staff. I can’t find the words to thank them all enough. Continued from previous page how I could continue to provide care to my patients whether they were in my clinic, in the emergency, or as in-patient. So while I am thrilled with the things I get to do as an academic family doctor here in Calgary, and we are delighted with how our kids have thrived (who knew I would have kids in ski racing at the ages of 4 and 6?), I am nevertheless grateful for my time in Placentia – it is where my clinical journey started and is the foundation upon which I continue to grow as a doctor. Dr. David Keegan (Class of 1995) is an associate professor and undergraduate director at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine. 35 ALUMNIMATTERS The Medical Graduates’ Society (MGS) is looking forward to enjoying another good year providing opportunities for many of us to reconnect. For the local crowd, plans are underway for our annual winter “tasting event”. This has normally been a wine tasting event and for this year we will be hosting a beer tasting event at Yellowbelly Brewery. We hope the wine tasters will come again and that the change in beverage will bring some newcomers. Check the MGS alumni website at www.med.mun.ca/alumni/ for more news on this exciting midwinter alumni social. Of course, the annual MGS reunion will be a big highlight, ideally timed in mid-summer, from July 27-28 and by pure coincidence, coinciding with the George Street Festival. Come a week earlier and you can also enjoy the Jazz Festival or stay a little longer and bring your kids to the St. John’s Regatta. This year the MD Classes of 1976, ’82, ’86, ’92, ’96 and 2002 are celebrating their reunion milestones. Another priority of the MGS (we aren’t only about parties) is to encourage support to the medical school by alumni. A key initiative established by the MGS is the Ingram Award, providing support for MUN medical faculty to undertake research and scholarly activity in medical education. The recently established Medical Education Scholarship Centre (MESC) provides a great resource for faculty interested in the scholarly aspects of medical education and will no doubt be of great value to the Ingram Award winners. Many of our alumni have been very generous in their support and this will be of life long value to the future graduates of our medical school. The 2011 Ingram Award winner in 2011 was Dr. Jim Connor for his project titled Medical Professionalism in the Canadian Context: Learning, Teaching and Doing It. Dr. Leigh Anne Newhook was also given an award for a project titled Development of WebBased Research Skills Training for Medical Residents. The winners for 2012 will be announced at the MGS reunion on July 27, 2012. 36 After four successful years as president of the MGS, Bridget Picco has graduated to past president and passed the reins of president on to me. I know all of you share with me enthusiastic thanks to Bridget for her commitment, energy and initiatives on our behalf. I am pleased to welcome Lynn Dwyer as a new board member along with existing members, John Martin, Ford Bursey and John O’Keefe. Others are encouraged to be involved and feel free to contact us with your suggestions for other alumni events or initiatives. Please contact us at [email protected]. Alan Goodridge President Medical Graduates’ Society MORE NEWS 2012 is a big year for reunion events! Memorial University is holding an all faculties, all years reunion. Havin’ a Time is happening Aug. 8-12, 2012 and of course the Faculty of Medicine will be involved. We will be having our first-ever Graduate Studies All-Programs reunion. All alumni of graduate programs in the Faculty of Medicine are invited to attend. Planning is underway: Special guest speakers have been invited; a Facebook page has been established (MUN Medical Graduate Students Reunion); and we will post details on www.munalum.ca. We are also planning several Postgraduate Medical Studies Reunions, so if you graduated from any program at Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine, we want to see you this summer.