Town Hall informs, excites Faculty of Health Sciences
More than 220 faculty, staff and students attended the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) Town Hall Feb. 27 at Bannatyne & Ft. Garry campuses to learn more about the new deanery and updates on the FHS sub-committee proposals. They also had a chance to comment and ask questions of all College Deans –Drs. Iacopino, Postl, O’Connell, Davies and Etcheverry- from, respectively, the colleges of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Rehab Sciences.
Dr. Brian Postl, Vice-Provost (Health Sciences) and Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences led the session, presenting the new academic structure which is comprised of four vice-deans: Dr. Peter Nickerson (Research); Dr. Christine Ateah (Education); Dr. Cathy Cook (Indigenous) and Dr. Sara Israels (Academic Affairs).
He also reported on the FHS Deans’ Council approvals regarding the final FHS Sub-committees proposals.
He thanked all of the committee members and chairs for their hard work and commitment to building a new, dual-campus Faculty of Health Sciences that brings together all health professions and offers exciting opportunities for inter-disciplinary collaboration in education, research and community engagement.
“Interprofessional Education is an important new target for the FHS,” said Dr. Postl. “Bringing together all of the health professions allows us an opportunity for meaningful IPE activities across the colleges and campuses.”
When asked what benchmarks would be used to gauge the success of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Dr. Postl said he could imagine that that when students from different colleges learn and train together in IPE pods and groups, the result is “graduates who are not siloed and guilded, but take care of patients as a team.”
He also pointed to the areas of professionalism, ethics and health systems as potential themes for joint, multi-disciplinary teaching. “Students are happy to get there [inter-professional learning and practice] and will run with it,” he predicted.
Click to view Dr. Postl’s FHS Town Hall presentation.