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Scott Knowles Pharmacy Award

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The Knowles Family (L-R Stanley, Scott and Jeff) with President Tom Traves at convocation in 2007.

There are many ways to honour the memory of a loved one.  Dalhousie alumnus Jeff Knowles (’07) and his father, Stanley (’74), mother Jean and sister Colleen chose to celebrate the life of their son and brother Scott (’07) by establishing the Scott Knowles Memorial Pharmacy Award.  A graduate of the College of Pharmacy, Scott passed away unexpectedly in 2011.  The award named in his honour will offer $4,000 each year to a New Brunswick student graduating from the College of Pharmacy who is returning to the province to practice in a community pharmacy.  To learn more about Scott and the award, read the story in Dal News.

Dispensing Knowledge

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Did you ever attend a family gathering and get inspired by the interesting stories being told of your ancestors and the paths that they took?  Encounters like this have a tendency to encourage us to learn more about how things use to be an how things evolve to become what they are today.  These times also make us wish we had a place where the information was recorded so that it can be preserved and be readily available for future reference.  With the recent publication of the College of Pharmacy’s history, Dispensing Knowledge, the College’s family has been given a wonderful resource.  Researched and written by Dr. Mary MacCara, Dispensing Knowledge traces the College’s history from just before its establishment in 1911, as the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacy, to the current time as the College of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Professions, Dalhousie University.  College programs and coursework, research accomplishments, the development of continuing pharmacy education and the many student involvements are all now recorded as part of the College’s history.

Dr. Mary MacCara

There are ten chapters, with a chapter devoted to the timeframe of each of the three Deans of the Maritime College of Pharmacy and the five Directors of the Dalhousie College of Pharmacy.  Personal reflections about the time of their leadership at the College, written by Directors Gordon Duff, David Yung, Frank Chandler and Rita Caldwell are included, as are memories of College days written by over ninety graduates and faculty members.  It also includes fourteen appendices, which provide information like courses taught over the years and names of the presidents of the student pharmacy society since its inception in 1946 – 47.  Dispensing Knowledge has more than 150 photographs of people, events and college memorabilia.  It is a very attractive book, with the cover showing the first five students at work in a laboratory with their instructor, George A. Burbidge, for whom the current College of Pharmacy building is named.

Copies of the book are available at the College of Pharmacy for $35 with funds raised through its sale benefitting special projects at the College.

Student Congratulations – Dalhousie Impact Awards

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Left to Right: Duane MacLeod (Nursing), Sarah Bouchard, Rebekah Oomen and Christopher Saulnier received their Board of Governors Awards from Chancellor Fred Fountain (centre).

On Tuesday, March 27th, Dalhousie hosted the first annual Impact Awards – a celebration of the contributions that students make to each other, Dalhousie and the greater community.  Among the winners were a number of students from the Faculty of Health Professions:

  • Rising Star Award – presented to a first year student who has demonstrated an outstanding level of commitment, leadership, creativity and initiative to the DSU, as well as to the campus and community at large.  Kyle Warkentin, Nursing.
  • Residence Life Leader Award – presented to students in residence leadership positions who have demonstrated an exceptional level of maturity and professionalism.  Kathleen Nason, Pharmacy.
  • Certificate of Distinction – awarded to students who demonstrate above average contributions to campus life over the course of their university career.  Michael Gfeller, Health and Human Performance (Kinesiology).
  • Gold D’s – awarded to students to recognize an elite level of involvement and acheivement in campus life over the course of their university career.  Emma Leon, Nursing and Zachary Whitney, Nursing.
  • Best Departmental Society – presented to a society that has demonstrated a high level of consistency in event planning and delivery, high participation and attendance of their membership and sets an example for other student societies.  Dalhousie Nursing Students Society.
  • Faculty Leadership Awards – presented to a student in good academic standing in each Faculty who exemplify the the highest level of passion for their discipline, take initative in creating new opportunities and encourage their pers to engage in faculty events.  Winners positively impact other students in their Faculty and the reputation of their Faculty outside of Dalhousie.  Megan Riordan, Pharmacy.
  • Board of Governors Awards – the top student awards at Dalhousie (four are awarded each year), recognizing students who contribute to the quality and vitality of the University, both through their academic accomplishments and involvement in campus life.  Duane MacLeod, Nursing.  (Read more about Duane’s acheivements in Dal News).

Canadian Network for Observational Drug Effect Studies (CNODES) Launches at Dal

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The CNODES Dalhousie Site Team: Front Row (L-R): Linda Dodds, Sandra Pauls, Yan Wang, Ying Zhang, Hala Tamin. Second Row (L-R): Upal Nath, Ingrid Sketris, Adian Levy. Back Row (L-R) Barbara Hill-Taylor, Chris Theriault. (Photo: Danny Abriel)

On February 7th, Dr. Tom Marrie (Dean, Faculty of Medicine), Dr. Gerry Johnston (Associate Dean, Faculty of Medicine), Dr. Adrian Levy (Community Health and Epidemiology) and Dr. Ingrid Sketris (Pharmacy), officially launched the Dalhousie site of the Canadian Network for Obsservational Drug Effect Studies (CNODES). Academics, decision makers and researchers learned about and celebrated the opportunities presented by this $1.795M, five year project.

Dr. S. Suissa of the Montreal Jewish Hospital (Nominated Principal Investigator) oversees the CNODES network, whose main objective is to explore and expand Canada’s ability to engage in post-market surveillance of drugs.  Pharmacists Ingrid Sketris and Neil MacKinnon (now at the University of Arizona) are collaborating with other Dalhousie Unviersity researchers (Adrian Levy – Nova Scotia’s co-principal investigator, Kenneth Rockwood, Linda Dodds, George Kephart and John Fisk), Acadia University’s Ying Zhang and other national investigators on this CIHR funded project.  Researchers from Dalhousie’s Population Health Research Unit are conducting the analyses on the Nova Scotia database.  Their data is combined with results from the other Canadian and international databases (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, UK and US).  This project is an important component of the federal government’s drug safety and effectiveness strategy.

Prescription for the Future

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Roger Montigny with his daughter, Kendra, who graduated from Dalhousie Pharmacy in 2008

Roger Montigny (BSc (Pharmacy)’74) was one of those rare breeds – a person who lived passionately by his convictions and sought to make the world a better place through his career as a pharmacist.

When Roger passed away in December 2010, he left behind a grieving family and community.  To honour his love of pharmacy and education, Roger’s family decided to establish the Roger Montigny Memorial Fund at Dalhousie with a gift of $25,000. The purpose of the fund is to provide an annual award to a third-year pharmacy student from Prince Edward Island who has demonstrated a passion for pharmacy and an interest in pursuing community pharmacy.

“The family wanted to leave a legacy for someone who has made a difference in the profession of pharmacy,” says his wife, Belinda. “We knew this award would be Roger’s prescription for future students.”

To read more, see the DalNews story.

SafetyNET-Rx wins RSAP Best Paper Award

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Congratulations to the SafetyNET-Rx group, which includes Heidi Deal (Pharmacy), Neil MacKinnon (Adjunct Professor, Pharmacy) and Todd Boyle (Adjunct Professor, Pharmacy), who recently won the Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP) Best Paper Award for 2011 for “Determinants of Medication Incident Reporting, Recovery and Learning in Community Pharmacies: A Conceptual Model.”  The paper will be published, and acknowledged as the winner, in the March Edition (Volume Eight) of the RSAP journal.

Pharmacy Celebrates 100 Years!

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David Yung (78-88), J. Gordon Duff (61-72), Rita Caldwell (98-present), Frank Chandler (89-98)

 The College of Pharmacy celebrated its 100 years of formal pharmacy education in the Maritimes on Saturday, October 29, 2011, by holding a Gala Evening which included a reception, dinner and silent auction at Pier 21.

The evening, hosted by Rita Caldwell, Director, College of Pharmacy, was attended by over 260 alumni, current and former faculty, students, and friends of the College.  Three former directors in attendance, Dr. J. Gordon Duff, Dr. David Yung and Dr. Frank Chandler, along with the current director, spanned 50 years of administrative leadership.

Greetings were given by the three Registrars, Susan Wedlake, Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists, Sam Lanctin, New Brunswick Pharmaceutical Society, and Neila Auld, Prince Edward Island Pharmacy Board.  Dr. Tom Traves, President, Dalhousie University brought greetings on behalf of Dalhousie University.  Dr. J. Gordon Duff gave the toast to our first 100 years of formal pharmacy education.

Mrs. Lillian (Campbell) MacMillan, Class of 1935, joined us for our celebration.  She was recognized for being the graduate present from the “oldest” graduating class (76 years). Lillian celebrated her 101st birthday days after the event.  Both the class of 1981 (30 years) and the Class of 1991 (20 years) held reunions and Dr. Bev Wilson, a former faculty member, travelled all the way from South Africa for the event.  Dr. Mary MacCara, a current faculty member at the College, provided an entertaining journey through the College’s history with excerpts from her new book “Dispensing Knowledge”.

A silent auction raised over $3,600 for the Dr. Michael Mezei Memorial Fund.

 

Limiting Unknowns in Taking Prescription Drugs

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Dr. Ingrid Sketris

Dr. Ingrid Sketris (College of Pharmacy) is one of 60 researchers across Canada collaborating in various projects over the next five years examining the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs once they’ve been made available to the public. Dalhousie has been awarded $1.975 million for their part in this project, which is being led by Dr. Adrian Levy in the Faculty of Medicine.

To learn more about this research, refer to the DalNews story.

Clinical Psychopharmacology Teaching in China

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David Gardner, Stan Kutcher, Guo (Translator), Liu Jing, Wang Yufeng and Yifeng Wei

From left: David Gardner, Stan Kutcher, Guo (Translator), Liu Jing, Wang Yufeng and Yifeng Wei

Dr. David Gardner (College of Pharmacy and Department of Psychiatry), Dr. Stan Kutcher (SunLife Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health) and Ms. Yifeng Wei (Research Associate with the SunLife Financial Chair in Mental Health and PhD Candidate) were invited by the Mental Health Institute of Peking University in Beijing, China to conduct their first ever Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychopharmacology Training Program.

The institute is an integrated centre for teaching, research, and psychiatric services and is a WHO Collaborating Centre for research and training in mental health.  The training conference was chaired by Dr. Liu Jing and co-chaired by Dr. Wang Yufeng.  Both Liu and Wang are child and adolescent psychiatrists and researchers in Pervasive Developmental Disorders and ADHD.  In addition, the hosts provided their guests with a number of excellent translators who were junior faculty members – both PhD and MD.

The four day conference covered several clinical topics: pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, ADHD, autism, aggression, delirium and tic disorders.  General concepts and foundational skills were given priority in presentations and discussions covering therapeutic framework of prescribing psychotropic medicines in children and youth, social issues in child and youth psychopharmacology, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, evidence-based practice and critical appraisal skill development.  The focus of rational pharmacotherapy recurred throughout the program and was especially emphasized when treating treatment resistant and complex cases.

A number of local clinicians and researchers shared in the conduct of the workshops for the more than 80 participants in the training program that were from all parts of China.  The participants were comprised of child and adolescent psychiatrists, general psychiatrists and pediatricians.  The program focused on practical orientation with direct impacts on patient care.

The program received resounding feedback and the Ministry of Health in China and the conference organizers have indicated a great interest and willingness to formalize the field of child and adolescent psychiatry.