Dr. Tom Feasby, dean of Faculty of Medicine at the University of
Calgary from 2007 to 2012, made the academic headlines
in Eastern Canada recently when receiving an honorary degree from
Western University. Feasby received a honorary Doctor of Science
from the school where he served as a faculty member for fourteen
years. He noted that “It was a proud moment to receive the degree
from the university where one of my former trainees is now the dean
of medicine.”
Feasby received
his med degree from the University of Manitoba in 1969, and then did
his residency in London. His Western connection came a few years
later, when he taught in the Department of Neurological Sciences at
Victoria Hospital.
Adela
Talbot of Western News summed up Feasby's numerous career
accomplishments:
Feasby is responsible for building one of Canada’s leading
neuroscience departments, which now includes internationally
prominent research programs in stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain
tumours and peripheral nerve research.
He was vice-chairman of Academic Affairs at Capital Health (the
Alberta Health Services), and associate dean of Clinical Affairs at
the University of Alberta. Feasby also founded iCARE, a health
services institute. Feasby served several years on the boards of
directors of both the Canadian and American Neurological
Associations, and currently serves on the board of the Michael Smith
Foundation for Health Research and the strategic advisory board of
the Institute for Public Health.
He has authored or co-authored more than 160 refereed
publications. Feasby was among the first to describe a form of
Guillain-Barre syndrome, a devastating neuro-muscular disease in a
number of co-authored papers.”
At the University of Calgary from 1991 to 2003, Feasby served as Head of the
Department of Clinical Neurosciences while leading the Calgary Health
Region's Department of Clinical Neurosciences. In Calgary, he founded both the Neuromuscular and ALS Clinics.
Last year, at the end of his period as University of Calgary dean,
Dr. Feasby gave a talk at the June Convocation Speech, which drew on
material from none other than legendary Canadian medical figure
William Osler. The theme he spoke on was memory:
A series of pictures from Dr. Feasby's farewell party at the
University of Calgary:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35327065@N08/sets/72157629682600848
On April 13, 2010 the 12th Induction Ceremony and dinner of The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame took place at Calgary.
It was the first time that this prestigious event was ever held in this
city, and one of the six inductees honored at the ceremony was Dr.
William A. Cochrane, OC, AOE. He was the founding Dean of the
Medical Faculty, when the medical school opened in 1970.
The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in London, ON has further produced
an Alberta Medical Heritage video, which features the history of the two
medical schools in this province as well as the larger history of
medicine in Alberta.
Deans from the Faculty of Medicine spanning four decades gathered for an intimate lecture on Friday, October-29, 2010
to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first medical school class
admitted into the Faculty. The room was filled as more than one hundred
alumni, current faculty and students came together to listen to the
speakers tell anecdotes, recall challenges and comment on the future
growth of the school.
The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine is one of the younger
medical schools in Canada, which had been created roughly forty-six years
ago – in 1967. Primarily conceived as a higher learning institution to
train family physicians, at a time when there was a perceived shortage,
it has moved beyond this by evolving into a school that educates
physicians for a great spectrum of activities: from primary care to
specialty care; to careers in education, management, and research.
The school has seen many infrastructural changes occur since its
inception. Originally housed on the University’s main campus, students
in the class of 1975 were the first to start their program in the newly
constructed Health Sciences Building, built adjacent to the Foothills
Hospital. The advent of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical
Research (AHFMR) in the early 1980s brought with it the opportunity to
expand the Faculty of Medicine with research expertise.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Faculty recruited more than
100 well-trained biomedical and health care researchers. In order to
house these researchers, the Heritage Medical Research Building was
built in November of 1987 with funding made available by the Alberta
Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. On April 22nd, 2005, the
University of Calgary then saw the inauguration of the new O’Brien
Centre for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) Program, with
innovative educational and research facilities in an undergraduate
degree.It is part of the Faculty of Medicine, but has also close ties to
many other Faculties on Main Campus, to local institutions and the
Alberta Health Services. In 2004, the Faculty of Medicine further
witnessed the establishment of its “sister faculty” in the Foothills
complex, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
(UCVM). The first professors and researchers of the UCVM were recruited
in the following year and the inaugural graduate students program
started in 2006. Last year – 2008 –, the first undergraduate DVM class
has begun its education in Calgary, with the commencement of the
academic year in September.
Throughout the years, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of
Calgary has thus grown and developed into an internationally recognized
education and research facility. It takes pride in its multidisciplinary
approach to medical research, education and patient care. This
structure has allowed for the tight sharing of knowledge between doctors
and researchers, and it fostered the transfer of knowledge from the
laboratory to the bedside of patients. More information can be gained through The Alberta Medical History Collection project.
