mediNEWSotago, December 2012

Tēnā koutou kātoa

 

Welcome to the December edition of mediNEWSotago. Seasons greetings to everyone and thank you all for your hard work and commitment during what has been a very productive and eventful year. The Christmas holiday will give us all the opportunity to sit back, relax, take stock, recharge our batteries and spend time with family and friends.

I am delighted to report that the reoccupation of our main campus building at UOC has now commenced, with staff back into level 2. The remaining floors will be reoccupied successively over the coming weeks in time for the commencement of the 2013 academic year. The building has been repaired to 120% of the new building code – a great achievement. On behalf of all of us I would like to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the architects, engineers, builders, construction workers and our staff who have worked furiously hard over the past two years to make this achievement a reality. Thank you as well to our staff and students who have endured such a high level of disruption over the past two years. The journey is far from over, but the opening of the main building is nevertheless a major milestone.

2013 will see us continuing full steam ahead with implementation of the Curriculum Master Plan, further action on the social accountability agenda, and working closely with our colleagues in primary care and hospital settings.

We bid a fond farewell to Professor Robin Taylor who is returning to his turanga waewae. In June next year we will be welcoming Dr John Adams to the role of Associate Dean Student Affairs.

I look forward to seeing everyone in the New Year as we welcome our new group of second year students and welcome back our returning students.

Happy holidays.

Peter Crampton
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
University of Otago

Faculty News and Events

Sayers building offices officially opened

The Faculty of Medicine was pleased to have the administrative offices officially opened recently after being extensively upgraded progressively over the past 18 months.  To acknowledge the work of the previous Dean of Medicine and Pro Vice Chancellor, Prof Don Roberton and the inaugural Convenor of the ELM Integrated Cases programme, Dr Gayle Roberton, the offices have been named the “The Roberton Faculty of Medicine Offices”.

The ground floor now comprises the Faculty of Medicine; Dean’s and management offices, Faculty Education Unit, OSMS academic and administrative offices as well as the ELM offices for Convenors, Faculty tutors and some ELM administrative staff.

 

 

Previous Dean’s portrait unveiled

Professor Don Roberton, Dean of Medicine and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences from 2007-2011, attended the unveiling of his portrait at a function held in his honour in the Hunter Centre. The portrait has been installed in the Barnett Lecture theatre along with those of previous Deans of the Medical School. Right: Prof Bill Gillespie and Prof Peter Crampton unveil the portrait of Prof Don Roberton

Staff News

Professor Robin Taylor (pictured here with Dean of Faculty, Professor Peter Crampton) will be leaving the University after over 25 years work in the Dunedin School of Medicine.
He recently gave the inaugural Dean’s Lecture to the 2012 ELM year three class on their last day in the ELM programme. Robin’s address was entitled “Success” and highlighted the need to maintain a healthy work-life balance and the challenges a busy professional life can bring. Farewell functions have been held for Robin, including the Faculty of Medicine and the Dunedin School of Medicine. He also gave the address to this years graduating medical class. Robin will be missed by staff and students and we wish him all the best for his new life back in Scotland where in addition to clinical work, he will also be working as a lay preacher. The Faculty of Medicine is very pleased to announce that the new Associate Dean for Student Affairs will be Dr John Adams, who will be standing down as Dean of the Dunedin School of Medicine after ten years in the role. Dr Adams will take up the position in June and in the interim, the Acting Associate Dean for DSM and ELM will be Associate Professor David Gerrard, assisted by Jillian Tourelle of the Dunedin Student Affairs office.

Module Convenors Meeting – Dunedin, 6 December 2012

ELM and ALM module convenors met in Dunedin in early December with the theme of sharing teaching and learning resources as they are developed across the various schools and disciplines. This was an opportunity to share ideas and to hear about teaching initiatives that have been developed to improve the delivery of the material to students and to take advantage of new technology now available. The University’s Director of Distance Learning, Bill Anderson, highlighted the importance of the time spent by students completing directed or independent learning and having a wide range of resources for them, while Faculty and each school provided an example of integrated learning models. Phil Blyth, eLearning Senior Lecturer demonstrated how core medical concepts can be made readily accessible via Moodle; Lis Latta explained the introduction of “Ambulatory Care” learning sessions at DSM; Tosh Stanley showed how he has been using Otago (Adobe) Connect to link distance students from the UOW campus, while Suz Pitama  (UOC) and Marilyn Duxson (OSMS) outlined the in-house solutions for on-line learning tools they have created for their modules. Other examples and ideas were discussed at the breakout sessions which allowed for disciplinary-specific discussions.

This is the second such meeting arranged by Faculty for convenors, and was again attended by close to 100 participants (around 60 per cent of those responsible for the Faculty’s many modules). Those who attended will receive a full report with more information about resources identified during the day. Thanks to Joy Rudland, Director of the Faculty Education Unit and Karin Warnaar, FEU Project Officer, and Faculty administrator Shirley Skinner for organising the event.

 

Moodle for ALM 2013

The Faculty Executive has agreed to make the transition to Moodle from Blackboard in 2013 to support the Advanced Learning in Medicine Years 4/5 at each campus. The complexity of the medical course with over 600 staff, 106 modules and more than 270 students per year means that we need a Learning Management System that provides flexibility for our needs. Moodle is an open source product, which has been used successfully since 2009 within the Early Learning in Medicine years of the course.  The open source nature of Moodle and our ability to manage all settings of it at the Faculty level offers benefits such as: the ability to test and install components from other universities, and the ability to integrate with our various database systems such as FRED (Faculty student Records), Curriculum Map and other electronic resources.

Faculty staff will migrate material from Blackboard to Moodle within the next few weeks.  This will allow sufficient time for those module conveners, teachers and administrators wishing to commence the academic year using Moodle, to update and adjust the material.

Those modules requiring more time for the transition, will be able to up skill over the course of the first semester.

In the inter semester break (June 2013) we will complete the switch from Blackboard to Moodle so that by the beginning of semester two all modules will use Moodle. The Trainee Interns will transition to Moodle in 2014. Updates of the transition will be available on the Med Moodle homepage. Colour gradients will indicate whether modules have transitioned from Blackboard to Moodle to enable students (and staff) to tell at a glance where the most up to date material is located.

Further information is available at: medschool.otago.ac.nz, and email support is at: med.moodle@otago.ac.nz

 

 

Merry Christmas from the Faculty of Medicine – Te Kaupeka Whaiora