The University of British Columbia has reached across the Rockies for its new dean of medicine.
After an 18-month search, Dr. Gavin Stuart, a specialist in gynecologic oncology at the University of Calgary, was named to succeed Dr. John Cairns. The UBC medical school, which will expand to 3 campuses in 2004, will also be doubling the number of medical students to 256 by 2010, making it the largest in the country. The 2004 intake will be 200 students, compared with 128 in 2003. The new campuses will be at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) and the University of Victoria.
Stuart, who assumes his position this fall, is vice-president of the Alberta Cancer Board and head of oncology at the University of Calgary. Although he's looking forward to the new job — “I enjoy building” — Stuart, 49, is well aware of the challenge he faces.
“The biggest challenge will be to have the various components buy into what they are doing,” he says. “One would be very hesitant to create a fractured model with a ‘we–they’ approach. Yet to the same extent, no one wants to forget their own worth and feel they are just part of a broader picture.” For instance, students at UNBC will have to be assured that the quality of their undergraduate education is as good as at the main campus in Vancouver.
Stuart is hearing “a lot of concern [among faculty] about workload expectations, the rate of expansion, change and preservation of research during a period of significant focus on education.” He admits that the planned pace of expansion, with 24 students entering the UNBC and Victoria campuses in 2004, is “fairly ambitious.”
The medical school was a very different place when Cairns arrived 7 years ago. “There was an extreme distance between the government and any vision for medical education,” he says, “so we had a medical school with half as many students per capita as every other province, and expenditures of half the Canadian average.”
Substantial funding increases for new facilities have been provided recently, especially since the province's Liberal government came to power 2 years ago. — Heather Kent, Vancouver
Figure. Dr. Gavin Stuart: a new dean for country's soon-to-be-biggest medical school Photo by: Gavin Stuart photo