It’s a night to say thank you

This marked the first year the Faculty has joined forces with medical students and hosted the Manitoba Medical Students’ Association (MMSA) 2011/12 Teaching Awards presentation as part of the event honouring some of this city’s best educators.

The third annual Teacher Recognition Dinner held on April 9 brought together a diverse group of faculty members dedicated to teaching medical students at the University of Manitoba.

Year one and two students from the Faculty of Medicine also attended the event which was held in the Qualico family Center located on the Assiniboine Park grounds.

Brian Postl [MD/76], Dean of Medicine, was the emcee for the evening and in his welcome remarks noted, “[We] celebrate your work tonight […] because it is important to not only acknowledge but to also understand and appreciate why, when you could have done anything, you chose to give back. We value each of you for your dedication to medical education and I want to thank you for your important work here.”

The keynote speaker was The Globe and Mail national affairs columnist, Jeffrey Simpson. Simpson discussed the state of Canada’s health-care system, emphasizing that the environment in which the future physicians will practice will be very different from today given that we are on the cusp of an aging population where there will be fewer working people to tax and costs are increasing to meet the expanding health-care needs.

Simpson impressed upon the students the responsibility that goes along with their future roles as physicians in this new, changing environment: “Almost by definition in any walk of life those just setting forth on their careers have fresh perspectives… Physicians can be a force for positive change,” he said.

View the complete list of nominees.

Read Dean Postl’s blog “Celebrating Teaching Excellence.”