Medical school ‘will define my term as president’: Busch-Vishniac

U of S President Ilene Busch-Vishniac says that the medical school ‘will define [her] term as president’.
“Here I am, five months into my tenure, and yet I know — already — the biggest challenge that we face. I know what will define my term as president. And that’s what we do with the structure of the medical school at this institution.”

A media scrum with Martin Phillipson, vice-provost College of Medicine organizational restructuring.
The GAA, made up of more than 1,000 full-time faculty members from across campus, voted with a slim two-thirds majority in favour of the college’s faculty, who have been the driving force behind the lobbying efforts to have council reconsider its May decision.

Despite intense opposition from faculty and students, the College of Medicine is rethinking its strategy.
The restructuring plan, based off a concept paper drawn up and distributed in April, aimed to improve methods of clinical instruction in the undergraduate medical education program and to clarify roles and responsibilities of clinical instruction within the college. The plan was also meant to enhance overall research performance.
Featured photo: On Campus News
[/twocol_one] [twocol_one_last] [box type=”info” icon=”none” border=”full”]The Sheaf has been covering updates to the ongoing restructuring of the U of S College of Medicine since early this year. On this page, you’ll find a timeline of all our coverage, ordered from the latest news to the story’s early beginnings. Click on individual headlines to read the full articles.If you are on a smaller device and would like a mobile version of this story, please click here.[/box]

The restructuring of the College of Medicine remains on hold while the school’s faculty prepare their own plan to present to council.
“We were headed for a very contentious debate at the university council and it was clear that would be in no one’s interest,” Busch-Vishniac said.
Medical college faculty refuses to roll over
University of Saskatchewan President Ilene Busch-Vishniac called the meeting after her office received 50 requests from individual academics at the university, which triggered a clause in the university’s legislation that has not been used since being enacted in 1995.
“This is the first time there has been a special meeting,” U of S secretary Lea Pennock said. “The [legislation has] never been invoked before.”
University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine on thin ice

Last year, inspectors discovered 10 areas of weakness that the College of Medicine now must resolve to avoid probation.
In a letter to Dean William Albritton, the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools and the American Liaison Committee on Medical Education wrote that a team of inspectors identified 10 weaknesses that would result in probation if not resolved in 10 to 15 months. The inspectors had been dispatched to the U of S three months earlier.
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