Annual Report Department of Medicine 2011 Submitted by Dr. James Martin, Interim Chair Compiled by Ms. Josée Cloutier, Senior Administrative Coordinator This report has been updated with new website links INDEX EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 SECTION 1 – UNIT STATUS UPDATE 5 SECTION II – GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICE OUTSIDE MCGILL 7 SELECTED DIVISIONAL ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS 9 DEPARTMENTAL SUCCESSES 38 CONCLUDING COMMENTS 39 APPENDIX I - HONOURS, AWARDS AND PRIZES (2011) 40 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Research and publications The publications by members of the Department of Medicine number 1165 and these publications cover a broad range of research interests from basic biomedical science to population health. The research performed is supported by $49,066,770 in funding. The impact of the research is difficult to evaluate in a comprehensive fashion given its breadth and quantity. However the volume of work that is published in excellent journals is a strong testimony to its quality. Members of the Department are an integral part of the administration of research through participation as academic advisors in the hospital network and through involvement in the governance of the MUHC Research Institute. Teaching and learning (undergraduate and graduate) Undergraduate teaching is provided by members of the Department of Medicine in many departments within the Faculty of Medicine but also outside the Faculty. The graduate students supervised by Department of Medicine members are in many departments within and outside the Faculty of Medicine. The principal program for graduate student supervision, the Division of Experimental Medicine, currently has 254 students registered in diploma, MSc and PhD studies but there are many other students registered elsewhere. Student bursaries garnered in the past year were valued at $1,939,498. There are numerous workshops and research symposia organized by the different divisions of the Department of Medicine as well as the Division of Experimental Medicine that provide excellent opportunities for students to present their work and to receive constructive criticism. Involvement in the community Numerous scientific and educational events have been held by the Department members for the community at large. Honours, awards, and prizes These were numerous. A brief selection is given: Dr. Robyn Tamblyn was appointed Scientific Director, Institute of Health Services & Policy Research, CIHR; Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin is President elect of the International Society of Hypertension (2011-12); Dr. Robert Sladek received the Joe Doupe Young Investigator Award; Drs. 3 Albert Aguayo and Peter Macklem (posthumously) were inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame; Dr. Tom Maniatis won the RCPSC Program Director of the Year Award; Dr. Michelle Elizov was named to the Faculty Honour List for Educational Excellence; Dr. Margaret Becklake was named Grande Officière de l’Ordre du Quebec; Drs. Maurice McGregor and Sylvia Cruess were inducted as Officers of the Order of Canada. A complete list of prestigious honours, awards and prizes conferred on members of our Department is appended at the end of this report (Appendix I) and is also posted at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/files/deptmedicine/summary_honours_awards_prizes_2011.pdf 4 SECTION 1 – UNIT STATUS UPDATE The Department of Medicine is the largest department in the Faculty of Medicine and it enjoys a tri-partite mission of teaching, research and the delivery of high quality and innovative clinical care. The over-arching objective of the Department of Medicine is to excel and indeed lead in these various areas in Canada and abroad. Strong traditions of academic excellence place the Department at the centre of attempts to promote the academic mission within the university hospital network. Changing societal and institutional values are providing challenges to the achievement of excellence. The obstacles to an academic career are many and young faculty members are re-thinking their choices. Declining funding for research in the areas traditionally pursued by the members of the Department represents a major threat. Strong and concerted action on the part of the University and the hospitals is necessary to sustain our rich culture of academic excellence. The Department of Medicine at the time of writing has approximately 450 full time faculty members that are engaged full time in its research, educational, administrative and clinical activities. The Department encompasses a broad range of research disciplines, teaching and training and programs of clinical care. We have PhD medical scientists and tenure track or tenured physician scientists that number 175 and 225 of the newly termed contract academic staff (CAS). The Department comprises 13 divisions; Allergy and Immunology, Cardiology, Dermatology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Experimental Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, General Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Hematology, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology, Respiratory Medicine and Rheumatology. Medical Biochemistry, although not currently a full division, is also under the academic supervision of the Department. The Critical Care Division is now subsumed by the Department of Critical Care at the MUHC but many of its members are in the Department of Medicine through their appointments in the Respiratory Division. The Divisions of Medical Oncology and Palliative Care have their home in the Department of Oncology with cross-appointments to Medicine. The Department is also responsible for the appointing of emergency physicians that do not currently have a separate university department. The Division of Experimental Medicine runs the graduate programs for the Department and is one of the largest programs in the Faculty. Through the system of cross-appointments and associate memberships, members of the Department of Medicine are strongly linked for research and teaching with other groups including the MGH Division of Neurology (with 5 Neurology and Neurosurgery), the McGill AIDS Centre (with Microbiology and Immunology), the McGill Bone Centre (with Dentistry) and the McGill Nutrition and Food Science Centre (with Agriculture and Environmental Sciences). The Department boasts several leading units of importance to the McGill community including the Meakins-Christie Laboratories, the Centre for Host Resistance and the McGill Centre for Tropical Medicine. Members of the Department create numerous intra-institutional links, through teaching functions in many other Departments (e.g. Human Genetics, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Physiology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Epidemiology Biostatistics and Occupational Health, Pathology, etc). The teaching, research and administrative contributions to these departments are non-negligible. The divisions report to the Interim Chair (Dr. Jim Martin) via the Executive Committee of the Department of Medicine that includes Dr. Michael Bonnycastle (Physician-in-Chief, St. Mary’s Hospital), Dr. Joyce Pickering (Interim Physician-in-Chief) and Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin (Vice-Chair, Research and Physician-in-Chief, Jewish General Hospital). The committee reviews recruitment and attempts to harmonize growth among the different components of the Department. This is particularly important for our educational mission and increasingly so for research and clinical missions as inter-institutional collaboration increases. Success in creating an integrated academic Department has been partial, as reflected in a reporting process which does not evenly deal with the academic activities across all sites. Certain divisions of the Department are well integrated clinically, others not and these latter function autonomously with little evidence of collaborative activity, other than that required for the teaching of students and the training of residents. A nominative list of our members and their academic ranks is available for consultation at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/files/deptmedicine/listofacademicstaff_dec2011.pdf 6 SECTION II – GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICE OUTSIDE MCGILL Data on research funding for the past 12 months for the Department members at the MUHC were made available from the MUHCRI and continue to show the trends in decline reflected in previous years. The total funding was $49,066,770 which was a substantial fall from the previous figure of $66,439,347. The fall was attributable to decline in all sources but in particular contract research and unrecognized funds (e.g. pharmaceutical contracts). These are worrisome trends, although quite predictable. Declining success rates at operating grants competitions, in particular the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have taken their toll. Re-orientation of provincial and national research priorities towards teams and away from individual investigators, the traditional strength in our Department and doubtlessly in the Faculty of Medicine as a whole, is no doubt responsible in large part. Further focus on pillars three and four of the CIHR will only serve to worsen the situation in the immediate future. Student bursaries have declined from $2,711,604 to $1,939,498. Of course these statistics will track operating funds. Perhaps a future strategy will be to offer some operating funds to investigators to accompany internal bursaries awarded by either the University or the MUHCRI. Data for the JGH and for the Department members in the Lady Davis Institute are reported separately and not