The Alberta government will provide up to $1 million for the observational study, to be conducted by researchers from the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta, and other experts.

Drs. Brenda Hemmelgarn, Braden Manns, and Marcello Tonelli – all Alberta kidney specialists – had been doing clinical research together for years when they recognized that publishing research is just the first step.

A familiar face is at the helm of Alberta Health Services (AHS). Dr. Chris Eagle was named acting President and Chief Executive Officer of AHS by the Board Nov. 24.  The provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than 3.7 million adults and children living in Alberta.

It might be assumed that repeated exposure to death and dying could only have a negative impact on the lives of health care professionals; however a University of Calgary study has revealed the opposite.

The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine is exposing students to family medicine practice and clinical skills in their first year of medical school through a new mandatory clinical course.  All 170 first year medical students at the U of C are currently partnered one-on-one with a family practitioner and spend five half days at the clinic over the several months of their first year medical school.  Most of the course is job-shadowing family doctors and observing clinical encounters

Five Faculty of Medicine members have secured new funding from the federal government totaling over $5 million as part of the Canada Research Chair program.  Dr. Nathalie Jetté, Dr. Mark Giembycz, Dr. V. Wee Yong, Dr. George Chaconas, and Dr. Gerald Zamponi are amongst the 10 University of Calgary faculty members in all who have either secured new funding or had their Canada Research Chairs renewed, following the latest round of applications.

Considered to be one of the most world’s prestigious international postgraduate awards, Faculty of Medicine student Braden O’Neill has been chosen to receive a Rhodes Scholarship for study at the University of Oxford.  The scholarship is awarded to only 84 students worldwide who have exemplified academic achievement and strength of character.

Dr. Andrew Demchuk is the first recipient of the Heart and Stroke Foundation Chair in Stroke Research at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine. The award winning stroke neurologist will use the gift to provide leadership in stroke research - helping the university develop, attract and retain talented people, strengthening capacity for leading edge research.

Dr. Clarence Guenter, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Medicine, was one of forty men and women anointed with the Order of Canada this week in Ottawa.

The highest degree of merit given to those who have an outstanding level of talent and service, and who have made an exceptional contribution to Canada and humanity, Guenter was recognized for his contributions to academic medicine. Most notably, Guenter is seen as a leader in health-care delivery and policy development, and for his dedication to improving medical training programs in developing nations.

Dr. John Tyberg, a member of the Libin Cardiovascular will receive $361,051 over 3 years to study the importance of the arterial reservoir in the distribution of blood to vital organs in the body and how exercise affects the volume of this reservoir.  Demonstrating how this reservoir works might persuade people to exercise more and lead to the development of new drugs.

Everyone loses bone strength as they get older, but the structural changes at work appear to differ between men and women, according to studies published in the journals Bone and the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Dr. William Cochrane, the founding Dean of Medicine, reminisced on the challenges and opportunities presented to him when he launched the medical school.  As Dean between 1967-1973 he had limited resources but managed to introduce a systems-based approach to teaching medicine and started one of only two three-year MD training programs in Canada.

Today, the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation, the University of Calgary, and Alberta Health Services introduced Dr. Frank MacMaster as the first holder of the Cuthbertson & Fischer Chair in Pediatric Mental Health.

The study of 6,000 people living with cardiovascular disease found that participation in cardiac rehab was associated with a decreased risk of emergency room visits and hospitalization and a significantly lower risk of death.

The Faculty of Medicine is hosting some of the world’s top medical researchers as part of the 2010 Gairdner Foundation lecture series. 

Join us on Monday, October 25th, 2010 from 2:30pm - 4:30pm in the Libin Lecture Theatre, HSC. (Reception to follow)

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Posted October 21, 2010 

As part of the 2010 Gairdner Foundation Lectures, the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine is proud to present Dr. Kim Nasmyth, Whitley Chair, Department of Biochemistry, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.

Hundreds of post-menopausal Alberta women are needed to take part in a ground-breaking study that will help in the fight against breast cancer. The Breast Cancer and Exercise Trial in Alberta (BETA) is trying to determine what amount of exercise post-menopausal women need to reduce their risk of breast cancer.

Posted October 20, 2010 

As part of the 2010 Gairdner Foundation Lectures, the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine is proud to present Dr. Calvin Stiller, Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario in the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology.

The October 19-20th event is co-sponsored by the World Health Organization and the Government of Canada and will focus on developing strategies and resources on how to assess population salt consumption and evaluate programs aimed at reducing reduce salt intake.

Researchers at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine are using an innovative new imaging technique to study how white blood cells (called neutrophils) respond to inflammation, and have revealed new targets to inhibit the response.

Researchers looked at the cost-effectiveness of implementing a complete cellphone ban in Alberta and their results say it could lead to an annual savings of $6 million in reduced health care costs plus savings of $30 million per year in reduced costs of cleaning up after crashes.

Published in the September 28 issue of the international journal Neurology, the study
includes 1651 people with HIV being treated at the Southern Alberta Clinic (SAC) in
Calgary between 1998 - 2008. The study team reports that 404 people with HIV
experienced neurological problems, including seizures, dementia, nerve pain in their
hands and feet, memory loss, headaches/migraines, opportunistic infections of the
central nervous system, and movement disorders.

The Mackie Family History of Neuroscience Collection provides a unique resource at the University of Calgary that will be available to everyone including students, faculty and the public. The collection broadens the neuroscience educational experience and digitizing the collection enables people around the world to share in the resource.

A 36-member Alberta Osteoarthritis team has been assembled and is comprised  of Alberta researchers, orthopedic surgeons, scientists, rehabilitation specialists and healthcare design experts.

Dr. Ross Mitchell and his spinoff firm Calgary Scientific have partnered with Sprint to market a first of its kind medical imaging solution that could contribute to better patient outcomes, faster treatment decisions and a reduced financial burden on long-term patient care.

A new study from the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine shows that the Alberta government’s introduction of a daily physical activity initiative (DPA) has been successfully implemented in Calgary schools. The study published in the online edition of Paediatrics & Child Health suggests that programs like this could result in increasing the amount of exercise children participate in.

Alberta Health Services Calgary Zone, the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine and the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta are very pleased to announce that Dr. Todd J. Anderson has been appointed as Zone Clinical Department Head and Faculty Department Head for the Department of Cardiac Sciences, and the Director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta. The appointment is effective July 1, 2010.

A new study on stress by the Faculty of Medicine's Dr. Jaideep Bains and colleagues is being published in the October issue of the prestigious international journal Nature Neuroscience.

The Faculty of Medicine has made learning medicine in rural Alberta part of its core curriculum. The pilot program, called Preclinical Networked Medical Education (PNME), sees med students working in Lethbridge and Olds. A similar pilot is running at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine.

University of Calgary president Dr. Elizabeth Cannon answered questions from faculty and staff about the future of the U of C, and we were there. Check out our slideshow!

“My very first day in the lab was exciting,” says Natalie Farrell, a high school student selected for the 2010 Heritage Youth Researcher Summer (HYRS) program. “My supervisor showed me a beaker full of what I thought was bubbling water, but it was actually artificially-made cerebrospinal fluid! This fluid encases the spinal cord and provides it with oxygen and food to keep the spinal cord alive. Imagine being able to do that in a lab … how cool is that?!”

Farrell is working in the laboratory of Patrick Whelan, PhD, an associate professor in the faculties of medicine and veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary whose work is funded by Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions. His research team is investigating how signals travel along the spinal cord with the goal of improving the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries.

The majority of Canadians consume too much salt, contributing to alarmingly high incidences of high blood pressure, strokes and heart disease.   On July 29, Health Canada's Sodium Working Group released recommendations for curbing the dangerously high levels of salt Canadians consume.

The group’s steering committee, which includes Dr. Norm Campbell from the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine and member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta made six general and 27 specific recommendations on reducing people’s salt intake.

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The science fiction of melding man and machine has played out for decades onscreen, from The Six Million Dollar Man to The Terminator.

But the bionic hybrid age may well be flickering to life – real life – in the Calgary lab where scientists who made history fusing snail brain cells to a computer microchip six years ago are poised to try the same feat with human cells.

Researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute are to announce Tuesday that they have made a key advance in connecting brain cells to a newly designed silicon chip, crafted with the National Research Council of Canada, that allows them to “hear” the conversation between living tissue and an electronic device as never before.

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Indigenous people in Canada experience a greater burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and mental illness than non-indigenous people. A new five year international project will investigate how medical education influences access and quality of health care with the goal of reducing disparities in those diseases. Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe of the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine will lead the Canadian component of the collaboration.

“This project will address gaps in our understanding of how differences in health professionals’ clinical decision making, communication and engagement with patients and families might impact health outcomes for indigenous patients,” says Crowshoe, an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and member of the Calgary Institute for Population and Public Health.

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