Sharing success

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July 17, 2014

College of Medicine Colleagues,

I’m writing today to congratulate a number of our colleagues on their recent personal and professional successes.

First, I am pleased to announce that on my recommendation, Dr. Sheila Harding’s term as our Associate Dean, Medical Education has been extended to June 30, 2015.  This is excellent news for the College of Medicine as we launch our 2+2 curriculum this coming August and continue to prepare for our UGME accreditation visit scheduled for May 10 -12, 2015.  Sheila’s leadership and familiarity with all things accreditation will serve as a great assistance over the next 10 months. I am grateful we will be able to rely on and benefit from her knowledge and commitment to our college.

In addition, Sheila’s accreditation expertise has also brought national recognition.  In June, she was chosen as one of four AFMC representatives on the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools. Sheila will be working with her national colleagues to oversee implementation of the newly restructured accreditation processes and standards, which will permit greater Canadian autonomy and content (i.e., social accountability, service learning, diversity) while preserving reciprocity for our graduates and dual Canadian/American accreditation status for our schools.

Further to accreditation, it’s important for us to understand that accreditation is a form of self-regulation and is meant to serve as a catalyst for continuous quality improvement for our medical education programs.  Accreditation is not imposed upon us, but rather it is an opportunity for us to be judged by our peers.  It is part of our professional responsibility as physicians to respond accordingly.  We are not alone in the struggles we’ve faced around accreditation; it is a challenging process for many schools.  It is important to note the Canadian deans are leading the process of introducing the new Canadian standards that will be in place for our 2017 visit.

Second, I would like to acknowledge and congratulate our researchers, both clinician scientists and biomedical scientists, who have recently earned significant funding awards:

CIHR Open Operating Grant March 2014 competition:

  • Sylvia Abonyi (Community Health and Epidemiology) and Sarah Oosman (School of Physical Therapy), together with the U of S co-investigators Hassanali Vatanparast (Nutrition & Dietetics) and Nazeem Muhajarine (Community Health and Epidemiology), are awarded in average $250,730 per year for five years for Wuskiwiy-tan! (Let’s Move!) Aging Well in a Northern Saskatchewan Metis Community
  • Linda Chelico (Microbiology and Immunology) is awarded in average $116,150 per year for five years for The Virus Infectivity Factor (Vif) of HIV: Mechanisms of Inhibiting APOBEC3 Immune Factors
  • Deborah Anderson (Oncology) (Co-I: Franco Vizeacoumar, Oncology) is awarded $100,000 Bridge Grant  for Targeting Metastatic Breast Cancer

Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation Spring 2014 Establishment Grants:

  • Darryl Adamko (Pediatrics) for Metabolomic analysis of urine: Improving the diagnosis of asthma and COPD
  • G. Camelia Adams (Psychiatry) for Nature and nurture: A biopsychosocial exploration of the relationship between childhood trauma, adult attachment, and severity of depression and social anxiety in Saskatchewan
  • Lane Bekar (Pharmacology) for Glucocorticoid effects on acute neuroinflammation and chronic neurodegeneration
  • Sharyle Fowler (Medicine) for The impact of chronic inflammation and its treatment on determinants of health in women with inflammatory bowel disease and their offspring
  • Stephan Milosavljevic (Physical Therapy) for Walking away from low back pain: One step at a time
  • Erika Penz (Medicine) forCost Effectiveness of Lung Cancer Screening in Saskatchewan – Applying Microsimulation Modeling and Saskatchewan-specific Costs of Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Management

Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation Spring 2014 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Awards: 

  • Yalena Amador Canizares (Microbiology and Immunology) Supervisor: Joyce Wilson Project: Mechanistic Analysis of miR-122 promotion of HCV replication
  • Lei An (Physiology) Supervisor: John Howland Project: Effects of maternal immune activation during pregnancy on patterns of brain activity in the offspring: implications for schizophrenia
  • Juan-Nicolas Pena-Sanchez (Gastroenterology)Supervisors: Jennifer Jones, Lisa Lix, Gary Teare Project: Assessing quality of care for patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and evaluating the impact of the Multidisciplinary IBD Clinic in Saskatchewan: a population-based cohort study using administrative data (Crohn’s and Colitis Postdoctoral Fellow, Co-funded by Crohn’s and Colitis Canada)
  • Sachin Singh (Medicine) Supervisor: John Gordon Project: Optimizing tolerogenic dendritic cells for immunotherapy

Congratulations to each of you.  It is wonderful to see success being achieved across such a broad range of disciplines in our colleges

Here’s to a lovely Saskatchewan summer weekend – I hope you will all have time to relax and enjoy it with your friends and family.

Sincerely,
Preston