Faculty News: 1997-98
Honours, Projects, Appointments
Recent Honours in the Faculty of Medicine
- Two members of our faculty - Dr. Claudio Cuello (Chairman, Department of Pharmacology) and Dr. Emil Skamene (Director of the Centre for Host Resistance) - were elected to the Royal Society of Canada. Full article.
- Dr. Michael Kramer was named an MRC Distinguished Scientist - one of only 6 in Canada in 1997.
- Dr. David Kaplan (MNI) won the 1st Harold E. Johns Award from the National Cancer Institute of Canada. Dr. Kaplan will serve as research head of a new Brain Tumour Research Centre at the MNI - the first of its kind in Canada.
- Dr David Rosenblatt (Medical Genetics) was elected to the prestigious Académie nationale de médecine in France - the fourth Canadian to achieve this honour.
- Dr. Brenda Milner (MNI) was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame for her research in cognitive neuroscience.
- Dr. George Karpati (Chair of Neurology at MNI) won the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation.
- Dr. Lucien Abenheim (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) was named Scientist of the Year by Radio-Canada. Dr. Abenheim is well-known for his research into the side-effects of diet drugs.
- Dr. Kresimir Krnjevic (Physiology) and Dr. Margaret Lock (Social Studies of Medicine) received the Prix du Québec - the highest award given by the province in the sciences.
- Dr. Samarthji Lal (Psychiatry) won the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Distinguished Scientist Award for Schizophrenia Research from the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation.
- Dr. Jerry Pelletier (Biochemistry and Oncology) was awarded the William E. Rawls Prize for his research into key genes linked to Wilms tumour (a type of childhood kidney cancer).
- Dr. Balfour Mount (Palliative Care) and Dr. Donald Lawrence (Medicine) share the Osler Award for Outstanding Teaching this past year - an award made even more special by the fact that our students of the 4th year class select the recipients. Dr Faith Wallis (Social Studies of Medicine) won the prestigious H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Outstanding Teaching, given by the Faculty of Arts.
- Dr Anthony Dobell (Professor Emeritus), Dr. Richard Margolese (Surgery), and Dr David Mulder (Surgery) - were appointed to the Order of Canada. A long-standing member of the Order, Dr Charles Scriver (Pediatrics) has been promoted to a higher rank within that group of special Canadians.
- Professor Robert Kearney (Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering) has been elected President of the IEEE - Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society - the largest international society (over 8,000 members) for biomedical engineering.
New Projects
- The Faculty is moving ahead with plans to apply computer technology to medical education - funded in large part by a generous gift from the Molson Foundation. Eighteen student projects are underway, on such topics as "the virtual stethoscope" and a "neuromuscular disease tutorial". They explore the use of multimedia and the internet in medical teaching. Full article.
- A pilot project has been launched to provide professors with a chance to digitize, store, and distribute their teaching material; to put to wider use their 35 mm slides, overheads, x-rays, photographs, etc.
- The Faculty of Medicine's graduating Class of '98 will be the first to have been trained under the Faculty's new curriculum - a program that complements a lecture format with small-group sessions, modules, labs, and computer-based learning.
- The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital will soon lay down bricks for their new Brain Tumour Research Centre. In preparation, the MNI has recruited 15 biotechnology scientists. Among them, Dr. Douglas Arnold and his colleagues have refined the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy to diagnose brain tumours non-invasively. The Centre will be the first in Canada devoted solely to brain tumour research.
- The inauguration of the Jack Cole Chair in Pediatric Oncology / Hematology. This Chair was given as a gift to The McGill Twenty-First Century Fund. The incumbent, Dr. Michael Whitehead, MDCM’58 and the donor Mr. Jack Cole, were both delighted at the prospect of advancing our knowledge of cancer in our young with the endowment of this Chair.
- Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. have also agreed to establish a research chair "The Novartis Chair in Medicine" which will benefit the Department of Medicine under the chairmanship of Dr. David Goltzman, MDCM’68. This brings the total number of named endowed chairs in the Faculty to 36.
Recent Appointments
Administrative Officers
- Dr. Robert E. Mackenzie became Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research
- Dr. J. Donald Boudreau became Associate Dean of Medical Education and Student Affairs
- Dr. Alvin Shrier became Associate Dean of Computing and Information Technologies
Chairs, Directors
- Dr. Allan Young has recently become Chair of Social Studies of Medicine.
- Dr. Joel Paris became Chair of Psychiatry in January, 1997.
- Dr. Judes Poirier was nominated Director of the Centre for Studies in Aging in July, 1997.
Appointed to Full Professor:
- Dr. Catherine Bushnell (Anaesthesia and Physiology)
- Dr. Martin Cole (Psychiatry)
- Dr. James Coulton (Microbiology and Immunology)
- Dr. Lois Hermo (Anatomy)
- Dr. Michael Pollack (Medicine, JGH)