I hope everyone enjoyed the summer months and is ready for another terrific academic year. First, I would like to offer a warm welcome to all of our new residents and fellows and hope you are settling in well.
Secondly, I want to highlight some of the Division's successes over the past year. With great pleasure, we celebrated our residents and fellows at a graduation dinner - congratulations on this incredible accomplishment! It has been an exciting year for teaching: the Dermatology Residency Program was nominated for the 2018 PARO Residency Program Excellence Award, Dr. Phil Doiron won 2018 Clinical Teacher of the Year (University of Toronto, Dermatology Program) and the Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award (Canadian Dermatology Association Resident and Fellow Society), Dr. Scott Walsh won the 2018 Teacher of the Year Award (Department of Medicine, University of Toronto), and Cathryn Sibbald won the PARO Resident Teaching Award.
Regarding research, we have had a successful year in terms of funding, with faculty being awarded several grants, among them from the Canadian Dermatology Foundation (CDF) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Drs. An-Wen Chan and Aaron Drucker in particular have had a very successful research year and we want to congratulate them for their hard work. The Division has had increased publication output compared to previous years, with approximately 150+ publications in general and dermatology journals (including JAMA, FASEB J, Journal Investigative Dermatology, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, British Journal of Dermatology, Allergy, BMJ Open and many more).
Notable achievements on a clinical level include Dr. Neil Shear winning 2018 Practitioner of the Year and Dr. Afsaneh Alavi winning President's Cup, both Canadian Dermatology Association (CDA) awards. As well, we are thrilled with the start of the Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) clinic at Women's College Hospital (WCH). This is the first of its kind in Canada and co-lead by Dr. Afsaneh Alavi, Dr. Marissa Joseph and myself.
Looking forward, we aim to continue building a city-wide approach to dermatology. Beyond recruiting new faculty members to improve city-wide coverage of dermatology services, one of the initiatives is to build teledermatology at the city-wide level, particularly for on-call needs and I'd like to recognize Dr. Trevor Champagne, who is championing this Quality Improvement initiative. Another ambition is to grow the participation of dermatology in multidisciplinary collaborations (with oncology, pediatrics, rheumatology, infectious disease, etc.), for example we will be presenting at City Wide Rheumatology Rounds this month and hope some of you may join this event.
We will have some challenges in the near future to integrate Competency by Design (CBD) into our program and also to identify a new Residency Program Director, who will work alongside Dr. Walsh in the coming year to become familiar with the role. On a positive note, after much needed renovations, our dermatology laboratory will open in the coming weeks in the Medical Science Building and this will be an exciting time for those of us involved in basic science and translational research.
I hope you enjoy the addition of this newsletter and wish you all a wonderful 2018/19 academic year!
