Focus on Impact
Report to Community
Cumming School of Medicine
2022-2023
One Child Every Child
- The Government of Canada has invested more than $125M in the University of Calgary’s One Child Every Child initiative through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF)
Stronger together
- Honouring Indigenous stories, knowledge and traditions on Foothills campus
Mini pacemaker
- An innovative new pacemaker tested and validated at the CSM is changing cardiovascular care
Our achievements
- In 2022-23, the CSM built on previous momentum and success to deliver impact on campus, in our community and around the world
National attention
See some of the CSM’s national award winners in 2022-23
One Child Every Child
UNICEF ranks Canada 30th out of 38 wealthy countries in child health and wellness. As a country, we need to prioritize strategic investments in child health and wellness — and, on April 28, we did.
The Government of Canada has invested more than $125M in the University of Calgary’s One Child Every Child initiative through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF). One Child Every Child is the largest research grant in UCalgary’s history and one of the largest ever awarded to a university in Alberta. The Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation (ACHF) is earmarking significant funds to support this initiative, and their contributions don’t begin or end there. Four decades of partnership and commitment to child health, including through the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, laid the essential foundation to One Child Every Child’s ambitious goals.
UNICEF ranks Canada 30th out of 38 wealthy countries in child health and wellness. As a country, we need to prioritize strategic investments in child health and wellness — and, on April 28, we did.
Cumming School of Medicine | Report to Community | 2022 - 2023
And ACHF is among many partners. In fact, more than 130 organizations across 25 countries have already come together through UCalgary, to support and shape One Child Every Child. This builds on the university’s more than 50 year history of advancing research, shaped by transformative investments by government, partners and generous philanthropists including the Azrieli Foundation, the Owerko, Cumming and Mathison families and many others.
Partnering and walking in parallel paths with Indigenous communities creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for all children to thrive. One Child Every Child will foster research excellence in three strategic areas: Better Beginnings, Precision Health and Wellness and Vulnerable to Thriving. Engagement with equity-deserving partners, and with national implementation partners, will help maximize the impact of discoveries. By bringing together researchers, health-care providers, educators and community partners, we intend to dramatically improve the lives of children across Canada and beyond.
By bringing together researchers, health-care providers, educators and community partners, we intend to dramatically improve the lives of children across Canada and beyond.
Cumming School of Medicine | Report to Community | 2022 - 2023
Partnering and walking in parallel paths with Indigenous communities creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for all children to thrive. One Child Every Child will foster research excellence in three strategic areas: Better Beginnings, Precision Health and Wellness and Vulnerable to Thriving. Engagement with equity-deserving partners, and with national implementation partners, will help maximize the impact of discoveries. By bringing together researchers, health-care providers, educators and community partners, we intend to dramatically improve the lives of children across Canada and beyond.
Stronger Together
Honouring Indigenous stories, knowledge and traditions on Foothills campus
A large mural unveiled on Foothills campus, inspired by the historic and spiritual significance of a Tsuut’ina medicine wheel, now offers a lasting symbol of UCalgary’s and CSM’s commitment to walk the path towards reconciliation with Indigenous people.
The impressive rendering measures 14.5 metres wide by 6.5 metres tall and brings together four separate works, each by a different local Indigenous artist incorporating perspectives from the Blackfoot, Îethka Stoney Nakoda, Cree and Métis cultures.
The mural was officially unveiled Sept. 29, 2022 with a ceremony and round dance celebration. The mural symbolizes the CSM’s commitment to its Indigenous Health Dialogue (IHD), an initiative providing strategic institutional direction in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s health legacy Calls to Action.
The process for the mural’s development — from artist selection to design to planning the unveiling — was guided by Indigenous Ways of Being, Doing, Knowing and Connecting as advised by Indigenous Elders, community members and project team members representing Métis and First Nations of Treaty 7 in southern Alberta.
A few steps away from the mural, a new Indigenous Hub within the Indigenous, Local and Global Health Office offers a physical space for staff, students, faculty and Elders to gather, share and connect. It hosts teachings with Elders, workshops, gatherings, celebrations and ceremonies.
The layout of the mural aligns with that of a Tsuut’ina medicine wheel and its four quadrants. It sits above the Feasby Student Lounge.
Riley Brandt
Philanthropy sparks a healthier world
Largest legacy gift in CSM history to uncover new chronic disease treatments, safer testing
A $35-million gift left to the Cumming School of Medicine’s Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases by longstanding donor Dr. Joan Snyder, Hon. LLD’11, CM, will both sustain the institute in perpetuity and spark new exploration that builds on its world-leading strengths in imaging immunity, the microbiome and organoid development research.
The Calgary philanthropist, who has generously invested in University of Calgary medical research and women’s sports excellence since the early 2000s, passed away in April of last year at the age of 90.
This gift will allow us to recruit the top faculty members and trainees and further elevate our facilities with the best equipment, including the very best imaging tools.
Dr. Derek McKay, PhD.
Director of Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases
In a final act of generosity, Snyder left an exceptional legacy gift of more than $100 million to community organizations — including $67.5 million to UCalgary to boost medical research at the institute and student learning and athletics at the Faculty of Kinesiology.
On Oct. 28, 2022
A celebration of life was held for Dr. Snyder in the Health Research Innovation Centre
Photo by: David Moll
Contribution to research inspires new name
of Cal Wenzel Precision Health Building
In May 2022, the Teaching, Research and Wellness Building was renamed the Cal Wenzel Precision Health Building to honour more than $20 million in philanthropic contributions from the Cal Wenzel Family Foundation. This includes a new $16-million commitment to expand the CSM’s precision health research capacity.
Philanthropists Cal and Edith Wenzel
Photo by: Adrian Shellard
Driving Forward
at the Cumming School of Medicine
Leading change in health equity and systems transformation
The CSM announced the appointment of Dr. Kannin Osei-Tutu, MD, as the inaugural senior associate dean, Health Equity and Systems Transformation, effective Feb. 1, 2023. Dr. Osei-Tutu, a hospitalist and associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine, is a well-established provincial and national leader in change transformation. He will develop policies and lead actions that support equity culture and increased diversity of the CSM, including development of a social accountability plan with the Indigenous, Local and Global Health Office leadership team. Dr. Osei-Tutu will also establish a team at CSM to determine the metrics and benchmarks that will direct and inform progress as it relates to our signed commitment to the Scarborough Charter.
We OWN.CANCER
Alberta Health Services (AHS) received the keys to the Calgary Cancer Centre in December 2022
The 1.3-million square foot structure is built but there a still more work to do before opening doors to patients in 2024. The OWN.CANCER campaign – a partnership between UCalgary, the Alberta Cancer Foundation and AHS – is closing in on 50 percent of its $250M goal to inform research, treatment and care in the state-of-the-art space. This past year, CSM and the campaign celebrated significant gifts from the Daniel Family Foundation to the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute as well as a new partnership between ACHF and OWN, allowing it to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve cancer outcomes for all.
New CSM ‘spiral’ curriculum to roll out
for 2023 first-year students
The incoming 2023 undergraduate medical education (UME) class will experience a new curriculum based on the five year Re-Imagining Medical Education (RIME) initiative. RIME provided stakeholders an opportunity to co-create an innovative curriculum grounded in the best evidence on medical education.
“The new curriculum reinvigorates the training of generalists,” says Dr. Lisa Welikovitch, MD, senior associate dean of education, adding this change is important to address societal needs. The method of teaching moves to a spiral — meaning iterative and progressively more complex — delivery of clinical cases viewed through a patient-centred lens while providing opportunities for creativity and self-regulated learning.
Dr. Christopher Naugler, MD, associate dean of UME, adds there will be an increased focus on the role of the physician in the broader community.
Students can expect small group and independent learning with less emphasis on lectures. Schedules will be more predictable with more long-term assessment and less emphasis on high stakes exams. This review was the first broad look at undergraduate medical education in 15 years.
The initial team (in 2018) included Dr. Rahim Kachra, MD; Mike Paget, Manager of Academic Technology; Dr. Allison Brown, then a PhD student, now assistant professor in the Department of Medicine; and three medical students: Zachary Urquhart, Kate Brockman and Joshua Low.
Mini pacemaker
developed at CSM is approved for patients
An innovative new pacemaker tested and validated at the CSM is changing cardiovascular care. Dr. Derek Exner, MD, a cardiologist and heart rhythm specialist, CSM associate dean of innovation and commercialization and Libin Cardiovascular Institute member has been at the forefront of developing the device. Health Canada approved it in May 2022 after nearly a decade of brainstorming, research and clinical trials.
Pacemakers keep a person’s heartbeat from going too slow and help regulate heart rhythm. The new device — which is wireless and smaller than traditional pacemakers — can now be used in Canadian patients outside a clinical research program. This work has been accelerated by support from the Calgary Health Foundation.
The new pacemaker (top) is smaller than previous models and has no wires.
Alberta Health Services
Our achievements
In 2022-23, the CSM built on previous momentum and success to deliver impact on campus, in our community and around the world.
1 in 3 CSM undergraduate students
received scholarships, bursaries and studentships, including Brittany Goodman, who received a 2022 R.R. Singleton Summer Studentship and worked on bone strength research at the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health.
CSM has 61 endowed Chairs and Professorships
including Dr. Jayna Holroyd-Leduc, MD, who holds the Brenda Strafford Foundation Chair in Geriatric Medicine and is the Academic Lead for the Brenda Strafford Centre for Aging at the O’Brien Institute for Public Health.
National attention
Dr. Michael Hill, MSc’90, MD
was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in Dec. 2022. As a leader in the Calgary Stroke Program, Dr. Hill and his colleagues have changed the way the world treats stroke. The ESCAPE trial, published in 2015, showed that endovascular treatment can dramatically improve patient outcomes after an acute ischemic stroke. It also changed guidelines internationally for how these patients receive treatment. Dr. Hill is also a lifelong mentor to learners, fellows and others.
Dr. Jane Lemaire, MD
was awarded the Dr. Léo-Paul Landry Medal of Service for 2022, for her career contributions to the field of Physician Wellness. The medal is awarded to a Canadian Medical Association member who has made exceptional contributions to the advancement of health care in Canada, including service to physicians by enhancing their overall health and well-being. Lemaire is director of wellness at the Office of Professionalism, Equity and Diversity and a member of the O’Brien Institute for Public Health as well as the co-director of Well Doc Alberta, a forum to create a provincial approach to physician wellness.
Dr. Samuel Weiss, PhD’83
was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. He received this honour for demonstrating that the central nervous system of mammals contains neural stem cells capable of replicating normal cell types, including neurons. His work has furthered a fundamental revolution in our understanding of the mechanisms of life. He was also honoured for his leadership at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction.