“Everyone of us has a Â鶹AV story,” said John McCall MacBain, BA'80, LLD'14.
He stood on a stage in a tent in lower field, which was transformed, for one September weekend, into Homecoming Village. The occasion: the unveiling of Made by Â鶹AV: the Campaign for our Third Century.
McCall MacBain is honorary president of the $2-billion campaign. He and his wife, Dr. Marcy McCall MacBain, made a $200-million donation to Â鶹AV earlier this year. The McCall MacBain Scholarships will provide outstanding students with an opportunity to pursue a master's degree or a professional degree, including an MDCM.
Dr. Sheila Wang, a Â鶹AV dermatology resident and developer of the award-winning Swift Skin and Wound app, was among the campaign ambassadors who took part in the launch. “The energy in this room is contagious,” she said.
Homecoming Village—which featured food trucks, hammock chairs and, in a nod to Expo 67, geodesic domes—was the site of our very own “Â鶹AV” Expo. Presenters took turns occupying a series of shipping containers turned hang-out spaces to share their Made by Â鶹AV story. Psychiatry resident David Benrimoh, MDCM’16, who is founder and Chief Science Officer of Aifred Health, was among them. He spoke about his and his colleagues’ award-winning, internationally acclaimed efforts to use artificial intelligence to better match psychiatric patients to the right treatment.
What did returning MDCM alumni and guests most enjoy about this special edition of Homecoming?
David Churchill, MDCM’69, said that his favourite event remains the reunion class dinner, but added, “Some of the unplanned things are as good as the planned! I ran into some classmates last night at the hotel and ended up at the Imperial, an excellent dim sum restaurant on St-Laurent.”
Churchill also shared that he was looking forward to hearing fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh take the stage at the big tent for the Leacock Lecture. Walsh, along with nature conservation advocate Dr. Jane Goodall, DSc'19, who delivered the Beatty Lecture, were two of this year’s Homecoming’s biggest draws. Walsh’s no-holds-barred comedy still has tongues wagging after the fact, and the demand for Beatty Lecture tickets far exceeded supply.
Churchill added that the Homecoming CME seminar on Saturday morning is a perennial favourite. This year, attendees were treated to a special treat, an all-reunion-class edition, beginning with a keynote address by former Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Dave Williams, BSc'76, MDCM'83, MSc'83, DSc'07, or, “Dr. Dave,” as this year’s CME moderator, Brent Norton, MDCM'84, introduced him.
Dr. Dave spoke to a riveted audience in what some readers will know as “the old medical building,” the Strathcona, about “going from science fiction to science fact.” He remembered that in 1971 that the correct answer to the following exam question, Is it possible to map the human genome?, was no. “Now we are doing genomics at home with commercial DNA kits,” he marvelled.
Michael Viola, MDCM'64, founder of the medical relief agency Medicine for Peace, and the recipient of the Faculty's 2018 Medicine Alumni Global Award for Community Service, talked about his organization’s work providing screening for cervical cancer to women in Haiti. “Nothing is free in Haiti,” he said, “not health care, not education.” He pointed out that Haiti lies only 700 miles from Miami and yet is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. When a member of the audience asked how to provide more meaningful help to low-resource areas of the world, Viola spoke about the importance simply of bearing witness.
“I’m attending everything,” said Ohio-based hematologist/oncologist Sandra Lee Hazra, MDCM’69, adding that the campaign launch event had brought tears to her eyes. “I thought it was very exciting. My entire career is from Â鶹AV! I think the is about passion for the university.”
This year’s Medicine Homecoming Mini Talks were emceed by Jacques Balayla, MDCM'12. “I’m an OB-GYN resident by day and by night, I’m an OB-GYN resident. I hear sunshine is nice, but I am going to have to take your word for it."
The audience got the scoop on such topics as the Faculty of Medicine’s vision for its third century. David Eidelman, MDCM'79, Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) and Dean, Faculty of Medicine, spoke about a plan to upgrade the McIntyre Medical Building. “The worst problem is that the amphitheatres have no outlets. This sounds like a small thing, but it is a big thing, because putting in those plugs will cost millions of dollars,” he explained.
They also heard about the Â鶹AV Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4), and the new School for Population and Global Health (from inaugural director and global health superstar Dr. Tim Evans).
At the Mini Talks, Medicine Focus asked Wai Chin Hwang, BSc'74, Dip Ed'78 (whose husband, Paul Hwang, MDCM'74, is a regular attendee at his Medicine class' reunions) what she most enjoyed about Homecoming. She said that she likes meeting people and sharing pictures of children and grandchildren, but that this year, she really liked the campaign launch: “It was so nice!”