Dean's Newsletter - May 2007

This monthly newsletter aims to update you with some of the activities within the Medical School. In this issue:

Building and strengthening relationships with Professional Colleges
As you would be aware, there is currently considerable debate regarding the relationship between universities and specialist medical colleges in the delivery of medical education and training. Associate Professor Tim Shaw from CIPHER and I recently met with a number of medical Colleges to explore the development of collaborative relationships between our organisations. These meetings have been very well received and have already led to a number of further discussions around closer linkages across training and developing new ways of working together.

Postgraduate students - we need more of them!
We are keen to develop more postgraduate coursework programs and have more students enrolling in them. I encourage you all to consider how you can contribute to the growth of the Medical School and meeting community need in this regard.

Increasing research student enrolments is also important and indeed critical to maintaining our research profile. If you are not supervising a PhD or Masters by research student can I ask to make this one of your highest priorities?

To assist with this process, I am delighted to announce that Associate Professor Brett Hambly from the School of Medical Sciences has agreed to take on the special responsibility of postgraduate student recruitment. Brett can be contacted on 9351 3059 or by email: . I am sure he would be happy to hear from colleagues who will share his aim of increasing our postgraduate student enrolments. Thank you, Brett.

Sydney Medical School Summer Research Scholarships 2007/08
In June the Medical School will be calling for researchers to submit projects for the 2007/08 round of Medical School Summer Research Scholarships. These scholarships offer an outstanding opportunity for enthusiastic undergraduate to get a taste of biomedical research. The quality of the students is high and the experience for supervisors is rewarding.
If you have a project which could produce a research outcome in the 8 week scholarship period and you are willing to work closely with one of these students over the summer vacation please put forward a proposal when the call goes out.

Curriculum Review Update
I would like to acknowledge the impressive work and commitment of staff in the continued curriculum review process. So far 39 working parties, involving over 500 teachers and students have been established all working on the finer details of the curriculum. This is a massive effort and I thank all those involved.

The collated output of these working parties will be presented to Medical School on Tuesday 24 July 2007 and again we welcome as many staff as possible to attend.

George Institute opening in China
It was my pleasure to accept Professor Robyn Norton’s invitation to attend the recent opening of the George Institute offices in Beijing. The opening was attended by the health leadership of China and the newly appointed Australian Ambassador – His Excellency Geoff Raby.

These new offices represent a significant landmark in the development of research and capacity building in support of China’s health priorities. The facility will address major health problems in China such as hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, obesity, diabetes and injury.

By arrangement with the George Institute we have a University of Sydney badged area in the new offices which is available as an office base for members of the Faculties of Health (which of course includes all members of Sydney Medical School) visiting Beijing.