Aug. 28, 2013 Volume 46 Number 2
Publication Mail Registration No. 40062527
GAZETTE A M E M O R I A L U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W F O U N D L A N D P U B L I C AT I O N
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Frameworks in action A new regular feature will tell real stories to help bring Memorial’s three frameworks to life.
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Career construction
High school students discover there’s more to engineering than just designing and building.
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MARINE
exchange Summer language program helps enhance ocean-related vocabulary for international students.
Oh yeah! St. John’s campus serves as backdrop for hit television show By Mandy Cook
If Jake Doyle,
private investigator on CBC’s
television series Republic of Doyle, was a real person, he’d be a product of Memorial’s Faculty of Arts. “Jake is a MUN graduate,” said Allan Hawco, the Goulds-born actor who plays the character, in between takes behind the Circulation Desk of the Queen Elizabeth II Library last week. “He has a BA, he minored in business and majored in criminal psychology.” (Note: Much like the fictional character of Jake Doyle, this particular degree program is fictional at Memorial.) Even spending just a couple of minutes with the show’s star reveals some of the thought and background chris hammond photo
that has been built into the characters and plots that have been playing out on Canada’s national broadcaster for the past five years. The episode filmed on Memorial’s St. John’s campus Aug. 17-21 — the sixth in the show’s fifth season — is the first time the comedy-drama, filmed on location in
Actor Allan Hawco took a minute from a busy Republic of Doyle pose among the stacks at the Queen Elizabeth II Library last week.
Changes afoot
MD students will base learning on patients from fictional rural and urban communities
the province’s capital city, has featured the university campus. According to one of the show’s producers,
See DOYLE on page 4
says the faculty is pleased to launch both initiatives for the class beginning in September. She says the new curriculum will enable instructors to provide students with a self-directed, active and experiential learning experience for years to come. “Over the last few years, many faculty, residents and students have been, and continue to be, involved in the planning of our new curriculum that encompasses, maps
By Melissa Watton
and integrates CanMEDS roles and the Medical Council
Two new developments to Memorial’s MD program
assessment methods,” she said.
are coming into effect this fall. The Faculty of Medicine
The new curriculum is a spiral curriculum model
is launching an innovative, new undergraduate medical
that integrates a story-based context of learning. The
education program and the first-year class size is
story-based curriculum will present learning objectives
increasing to 80 students from the historic baseline of 60.
within the context of fictional patients, communities
“Increasing our first-year class size means that we are
and physician encounters.
hsims photo
of Canada objectives with new teaching, learning and
From left are Chelsea Ash, Desmond Whalen and Mitchell Kehoe, who will benefit from changes in the MD program.
able to increase the number of students we traditionally
During their MD education, students will get to
accept and graduate from our MD program,” said Dr.
intimately know the people of the fictional communities
James Rourke, dean, Faculty of Medicine. “Our class
of St. James, Lynx River, Jim’s Arm and Coastal Point.
beginning this September will include 60 students from
Topics related to learning objectives will be revisited
The new curriculum is divided into four phases:
Newfoundland and Labrador, an increase of 20 students
over time. Learning will be broadened throughout the
Phase I — Health and its Promotion, Phase II — Disease
from our province. This will mean more students from
educational process with each successive experience
Prevention
here, trained here and, ultimately, more doctors who
building on an earlier one that is linked back to the
III — Diagnosis and Investigation of Illness and Disease,
will practise here. Not only will the class beginning in
patients and communities. This will support the
and Phase IV — Integration into Clinical Practice (years
September be our first increased class size, they will also
concept of a spiral curriculum to reinforce learning
3 and 4 clinical clerkship).
have the distinction of being our first class to be taught
through continued repetition and broadening of a topic.
and assessed using our new curriculum.”
Students will build their knowledge and understanding
Dr. Sharon Peters, vice-dean, Faculty of Medicine,
in a structured fashion.
and
Disruptions
of
Health,
Phase
The curriculum for medical students who began the program in 2012 or earlier will not change.