Dean's Report

The halfway point of any strategic plan is a natural occasion to stop and reflect on your identified goals. However, when you take a global pandemic, a transformative gift, and urgent societal needs into consideration, it was essential for the Temerty Faculty of Medicine to re-evaluate the goals identified in the 2018-2023 Academic Strategic Plan. 

The aim wasn’t to create a new academic strategic plan, which was developed following consultations with more than 400 people in various settings. It has been well-received throughout Temerty Medicine. Besides, the process of creating our next academic strategic plan will begin in the next 12-16 months.

However, many of the first phase goals of the plan have been achieved (or are being finalized and implemented). Coupled with the tremendous challenges that confront Temerty Medicine, it made sense to engage members of our community in a conversation about our phase two goals within the existing framework of the current Academic Strategic Plan. Led by Dr. Lisa Robinson, Vice Dean of Strategy and Operations, and with the assistance of external facilitators, we engaged more than 100 members of Temerty Medicine during the spring of 2021. Those consulted included learners from throughout the Faculty as well as academic and administrative leaders. 

Overwhelmingly, they told our facilitators that Temerty Medicine was on the right course. They expressed support for many of the new initiatives that have been undertaken and were encouraged by some of the early results. However, three key themes emerged that need to inform all of the work we do going forward. They were:

• Recover and renew from the pandemic, integrating the learning from the past 18 months to rebuild wellbeing, strengthen culture and address the unmet health system needs generated during COVID.
• Sustain and deepen our commitment to driving systemic change, particularly around equity, building on a foundation of “we all belong.”
• Develop a strong shared purpose that enables us to have a meaningful impact in research, innovation, education and culture change.

The feedback also reinforced the need for meaningful action across all dimensions of our work, including individual learning, organizational and system structures and expectations, and the norms, beliefs and values that make up everyday culture. This is well expressed in the following graphic that was initially developed by Dr. Lynn Wilson (Vice Dean, Clinical and Faculty Affairs), Dr. Pier Bryden (Senior Advisor, Clinical Affairs & Professional Values), Dr. Julie Maggi (Director, Faculty Wellness) and graphic designer Mark Bennett.

Stemming from the feedback received and reflecting on the opportunities on the horizon, the Dean’s Executive Committee has identified the following goals that Temerty Medicine will aim to achieve between now and the start of the next academic strategic plan in 2023:

Ecosystem of Collaboration

• Deepen collaborations in neuroscience research across the lifespan, recognizing the nodes of excellence across Toronto.
• Enhance the pathways for highly qualified students eligible for graduate and professional programs in Temerty Medicine.

Groundbreaking Imagination 

• Increase research capabilities to address future pandemics by expanding our Combined Containment Level 3 (C-CL3) facilities and supporting the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC).
• Improve resources and supports for scientists to further enhance our research impact and sustainability. 

Excellence Through Equity

• Support Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigeneity, and Accessibility as integral to all admission, recruitment, retention, promotion and curricular processes.

Support Health and Wellbeing in Everything We Do

• Integrate resources, processes and supports for wellness and professional values into learning and working environments for all members of the Temerty Medicine community.

Infrastructure, Policies and Technology that Compel Collaboration and Support Sustainability

• Complete planning for the redevelopment of the Medical Sciences Building’s West Wing.

These goals are not the limits of our ambition and do not include the continuous quality improvement efforts we bring to all of our operations. But they are specific and achievable goals in the short-term as we approach a more extensive process that will help us identify the more long-term goals that will be part of the next academic strategic plan. We look forward to reporting on the progress of these goals in MedEmail and future Dean’s Reports. 

Fostering research collaborations is an essential way to harness the many strengths of Temerty Medicine and its partners. This has included establishing initiatives like the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM), Mitochondrial Innovation Initiative (MITO2i), Medicine by Design, and the Toronto Cannabis and Cannabinoid Consortium (TC3). 

Building on the success of these endeavours, two new research consortiums are now underway. The Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) harnesses the full potential of U of T and its partner hospitals, including clinicians, scientists, engineers, and public health and policy-focused infectious disease experts to converge on innovative approaches that ensure future emerging infections do not wreak devastation. Anchored by U of T’s Infectious Disease Laboratories (IDL), Toronto’s only Combined Containment Level 3 (C-CL3) unit for the study of high-risk human pathogens, as well as the CL2+ aerosol containment facility and Biobank, EPIC’s virtual research and training ecosystem aims to be the leading initiative on infectious disease research and training from discovery to policy, a magnet for world-leading talent, and an authority on infectious disease-focused education and science-based advocacy.

Also underway is the TOronto Neuro-Immunology/Imaging Consortium (TONIIC), which is being led by Drs. Jennifer Gommerman and Kullervo Hynynen. Together they will receive $13.9 million from Canada Foundation for Innovation for a technology platform focused on neuroimmunology and neuroimaging for dementia, stroke, mental health and addiction, multiple sclerosis and cancer. It will allow them to purchase a 7-Tesla MRI and imaging mass cytometry that can visualize protein markers in tissue with microscopic detail. The project includes 30 scientists and clinicians at six Toronto hospitals: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University Health Network, The Hospital for Sick Children, St. Michael’s Hospital, Baycrest, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Finding new ways to accelerate discoveries into the marketplace is an important way in which to ensure new products and therapies can help improve health. Evolving from Temerty Medicine’s exploration of establishing an entrepreneur-in-residence and following a needs assessment, the Office of the Vice Dean, Research & Health Science Education is developing a roster of industry professionals who will work directly with researchers and spin-off companies on different aspects of bringing discoveries to market. This will ensure a variety of skills and experience are available to meet the scientific and business needs of Temerty Medicine’s research community. 

The development of the Medical Sciences Building’s West Wing for the proposed James and Louise Temerty Building (JLTB) represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the University to provide the physical resources needed to meet the space needs for the Temerty Faculty of Medicine in the coming years, as well as create a more recognizable, and welcoming front-door that fosters a sense of place, community, and engagement in the center of the St. George Campus. In 2019, a consultant team led by Perkins Eastman Architects was engaged by the university to complete a Master Program for MSB and a Feasibility Study for the West Wing site to develop a general space program, provide key planning recommendations and outline the engineering scope of the work. With the aforementioned Master Programming and Feasibility Study now complete, the Faculty and University are in the advanced stages of preparing a Project Planning Report, essential to the retention of a consulting team responsible for the comprehensive design of the new facility. In parallel with the Project Planning efforts currently underway, the Faculty is working with various departments and divisions to complete the necessary decant of the existing west wing of the building.  Vacating this section of the Medical Sciences Building and relocating its current occupants is instrumental in readying the future JLTB site for the start of construction currently anticipated for late 2024.

In addition to expanding physical space, growing the research infrastructure for Temerty Medicine has also been an important priority. The Faculty will soon add a 200-kilovolt cryo-electron microscopy system that will allow researchers to see the atomic detail of the 3D structure of proteins. This will complement a smaller machine (120 kV) in the Microscopy Imaging Lab at the Medical Sciences Building, and a larger one (300 kV) based at The Hospital for Sick Children.

Finding ways to work more effectively and efficiently is essential, especially as many had to work, research, teach and learn online. For example, by preparing for the unexpected – as Discovery Commons did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by envisioning a scenario in which members of the Temerty Medicine community would have to work and learn from home – helped to ensure the Faculty could make some of the quick pivots that became necessary in the past year. Similarly, the establishment of the Data Management Advisory Committee in the Office of the Vice Dean of Medical Education has helped to ensure more standardized information and a reduction in duplication. By streamlining processes, the new committee – led by Dr. David Rojas (Director, Program Evaluation, Office of Assessment & Evaluation, MD Program) and Caroline Abrahams (Director, Policy, Analysis and Systems Management, Post MD Programs) – can ensure the lessons learned in one aspect of medical education are understood within the context of the entire spectrum of medical training. Among their undertakings is taking carriage of the Voice of the… series of surveys as well as developing the new Learner Assessment of Clinical Teaching form.

Nota Bene