“Universities are not technical schools, although they may teach things like medicine, engineering and law — in fact, they should be the places that one goes to learn those important trades”

The editorial goes on to state:

“Neither are they places where people lollygag about, occasionally reading romantic poets or discussing their adolescent theories of existentialism, although a little knowledge of both romantic poetry and existential philosophy are useful things for even doctors or lawyers to acquire.” (underline is mine)

To this point our blog has been mostly informative. It is my hope that we may explore points of view raised by this editorial, and stimulate some comments.

We encourage you to use our Alumni Online Community, a password protected University of Manitoba website, similar to Face Book, that would allow you to keep in contact with your colleagues in a convenient way. To register go to : www.umanitoba.ca/medicine/olc.html

“On the banks of a muddy Burmese River its name long since forgotten, Joe Doupe entered my life driving a war weary Jeep accompanied by a matching slovenly Service Corps driver. I will always be grateful to the gods of war for that chance encounter. He accompanied my Field Ambulance Company from where ever it was down to Mandalay, putting the jeep, the driver and his own skill as an M. O. entirely at my disposal, although I never did clearly understand what he was supposed to be doing there. On reaching Mandalay the military situation became static and Joe took himself off with characteristic abruptness.”Dr Jack Hildes, 1967

The second quote is from Dr Arnold Naimark, a colleague of Joe’s who said:

“Is not not easy to describe his influence in a few words and perhaps there are many intangibles which will only come to be discerned in the achievement of his students.”

To which I would add “and the students  of his students”. Our Joe Doupe lecture this year was given by Dr David H. Peters, B. Sc. Med./86, MD/86 MPH, DrPh one of our outstanding students of the students of Joe Doupe. The achievements of Dr Peters are immense. He is currently Director of the  Health Systems Programs at John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and takes part in programs to improve health systems in low income countries. His talk was outstanding.

Hats off to Dr David Eisenstat who organized the event and leads the Advanced Degrees in Medicine Program. He has doubled enrollment in the B.Sc. Med. program in 2 years. The presentations by 8 B.S.c. Med students were excellent. Congratulations to Jane Colish, Pierre-Paul Lizotte, Andrea Mazurat, Tamarar McColl, Brent Sheardown, Maneesh Sud, Kristjan Thompson, and Catherine Wach as well as their supervisors.

Aug 21, 2009. This is the day we have worked towards for 4 years-quite literally. We completed training on OPAL for the class of 2013. It is also the 4 year anniversary for Aarti Paul with the faculty. Aarti is our system analyst and the person who led the process for us to have a curriculum management system. It began with a market survey,  then pilot project, creation of an RFP, disappointment Calgary could not meet their commitments, elation when we completed the transfer of intellectual property from them to us, and even greater elation when the hard work with our partner, Online Business Systems resulted in a great product, and our final “go live”.

Aarti has over 10 years of experience is Systems and Project Management. She was the Gold Medalist in her class for MSc Electronics Science, and holds many qualifications in project management and Software Engineering. In addition to being the lead for OPAL, she also provides leadership for all our other IT issues in the faculty. Her unfailing courtesy and professionalism has been invaluable for such a long project with all the issues inherent in change management.

Medical education content has been essential for the OPAL project. Partnered with Aarti was Dr Sat Sharma MD, FRCPC, FCCP, FACP, FAASM, medical director for OPAL. He  is also Professor and Head, Section of Respirology Department of Internal Medicine at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He also has full time appointments in the section of Critical Care and at Sleep Disorders Centre. He was program director of post graduate education in Respirology at University of Manitoba for 12 years and is currently Site Director of Respiratory Medicine at St. Boniface General Hospital and Health Sciences Centre. His other national and international appointments include Chair of Specialty Committee in Respirology, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Governor of Manitoba chapter, American College of Chest Physicians, and member of Health and Science Policy Committee, ACCP. He is also member of Canadian Thoracic Society Board. His research interest are studying epidemiology of respiratory diseases, perioperative respiratory care, exercise induced hypoxemia and therapeutic clinical research. His passion is medical informatics. His outside interests are competitive running and bicycling, adventure travel and community work.  The commitment to this project from Sat has been incredible, and essential for our success.

• 43.1 hours of air time
• 21 takeoffs
• 21 landings(we try to keep the above two numbers matching)

It was a grand adventure. the two photos below are of Winnipeg in the moring sun, and the home runway 31 at Saint Andrews.  Joan and I give our thanks to those of you asked for this blog, and those of you who followed it.

We also flew over the Confederation Bridge, and circled PEI. Hard not to land and stay a week, but if the weather is consistent it may take us another week to get Home!