Dear Colleagues,
The past year has posed incredible challenges to our physicians, researchers, learners and staff, with the last few months being perhaps the most trying. Despite this, the ELT has held down the fort on many fronts so far this year. As we move further into spring and vaccination season, I look forward to some light at the end of the tunnel for our very hard-working Faculty. Below you will find leadership’s latest quarterly highlights.
Executive Leadership Team (ELT) Highlights: January – March 2021
Fourth Annual Senior Leadership Team (SLT) Retreat: From Feb. 1-3, SLT explored progress in our five main strategic directions (education, research, engagement, la francophonie, and internationalization and global health), reflected on new ideas, and set an ambitious goal of becoming a Top 50 university worldwide for medicine by our 80th anniversary in 2025. Going forward, our Strategic Plan, Leading Innovation for a Healthier World, will be updated based on the emergence of some new common themes, including that of Planetary Health. As before, stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide insight prior to formal approval. Additional mini-retreats will be planned to continue these important discussions.
Ecole des sciences pharmaceutiques: I was thrilled to share with ELT the good news that both Faculty Council, and subsequently uOttawa’s Senate, have approved the creation of a School of Pharmaceutical Sciences for our Faculty. Next steps include program proposal approvals, an external review, and final approval by the province. Current timelines could see us accepting our first pharmacy students as early as September 2023. As the President puts it: “This is one of the most exciting projects on the table at uO, especially for la Francophonie!”
Promoting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the Faculty: ELT was presented with a document by Monika MacLaren, Senior Manager of the Office for Marketing and Communications, outlining areas for process review as they relate to EDI. Responsibility centres were identified for processes such as grant and award competitions, and career promotion. The ELT approved of the document.
EDI Learner Town Hall: On January 27th the ELT hosted a virtual forum for our learners to discuss current and future plans for ensuring equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at our Faculty. Participants included presenters (both learners and faculty members), and attendees from TMM, UGME, PGME, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the MD/PhD program, who had a chance to comment, ask questions and provide ideas on EDI initiatives, opportunities and gaps.
uOttawa Action Committee on Anti-Racism and Inclusion: The ELT heard from professor Boulou Ebanda de B’béri of the Faculty of Arts, the university’s first special advisor on anti-racism and inclusion and Co-Chair for the Action Committee on Anti-Racism and Inclusion. Part of Professor B’béri’s role will be to ensure that uOttawa exhibits a welcoming environment for all members of our community, and he was impressed with our Faculty’s progress so far on that front.
Social Accountability: Dr. Claire Kendall, Associate Dean of Social Accountability, presented her Office’s report ‘People, Partnerships, Progress: The foundation of social accountability at the Faculty of Medicine’. The report outlines recent social accountability activities at the Faculty, and will serve as a key foundational element in defining our overall strategy and approach for enhancing social accountability across all programs and initiatives in the Faculty of Medicine.
Global Health: Dr. Manisha Kulkarni, Director of the Global Health Program, presented ELT with the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Global Health Advisory Committee. The mandate of the Clinical Global Health Council is to facilitate knowledge exchange and cooperation on clinical global health activities across the Faculty. ELT approved of the ToR.
Planetary Health: Aligned with our strategic plan priorities such as global health and social accountability, Dr. Mark Walker, Interim Vice-Dean of Internationalization and Global Health, proposed the creation of a leadership position focussing on the health impacts of climate change and other human-made disruptions to our environment. Falling under the International and Global Health Office, the position would steward initiatives and best practices in planetary health across the Faculty. The ELT supported the initiative.
iMEd: Dr. Vicki LeBlanc, Chair of DIME, presented the “FoM Education Initiative Advisory Committee Proposal. The Faculty has plans to launch an institute of medical education (iMEd) to better coordinate and support education activities within our community. This winter we held two Town Halls to solicit your feedback. We are continuing our work on this following input received, and will keep you informed. Anyone seeking further information or wanting to provide feedback is welcome to reach out to Dr LeBlanc at [email protected].
Awards and Prizes: Dr. Chris Kennedy, Director of Awards and Prizes at the Faculty, informed ELT about the updates made to our Awards of Excellence, namely aligning them to our strategic priorities and increasing the number of awards to 24 categories. He also outlined achievements from the COVID-19 Recognition Awards and various awards aimed specifically at faculty members.
Meeting with Telfer: I updated ELT on my meeting with the new Dean of Telfer School of Management, Stephane Brutus. We discussed medical leadership, and plan to meet again to discuss issues of common interest, such as l’Ecole des sciences pharmaceutiques.
Staying Connected…
Please continue to refer to the FoM’s designated webpage for COVID updates.
ELT always enjoys hearing from you. Please feel free to reach out anytime by emailing [email protected] (or by calling ext. 8117).
Bernard Jasmin, PhD
Dean and Professor, Faculty of Medicine
University of Ottawa
