New medical students fulfil longstanding dreams

by Beth Haysom

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When students arrived last month for their first classes at the new Island Medical Program (IMP) UVic campus, it was the fulfilment of a 135-year dream for Vancouver Island.

"This is historic," said UVic president David Turpin, welcoming the first cohort of 24 student doctors who will study in Victoria and communities around Vancouver Island as part of an expansion of the UBC faculty of medicine.

"In 1870 as John Sebastian Helmcken negotiated B.C.'s entry into Confederation, the case was made for a medical school in Victoria," Turpin told them. "It was agreed that a resolution would be drafted conveying the obligation to build such a school…. Since that time many others have sought to see medical education here in Victoria. You can imagine my great pleasure in seeing that vision become a reality."

On day one the new student doctors proved themselves worthy pioneers when all 24 of them managed to get to UVic in time for their inaugural ceremony in spite of a snowstorm that shut down much of Victoria and made the university campus look more like a scene from the movie Dr. Zhivago.

Already, after just a few weeks, the new students—14 women and 10 men—have made themselves at home. The new Medical Sciences Building headquarters is bustling with student doctors, lecturers, and staff and its much-touted technology is being put to the test to link UVic with the other faculty campuses at UBC and the University of Northern British Columbia.

"We have got off to a good start. There have been a few wrinkles to iron out but the new technology is working and our students are settling in well," says Dr. Oscar Casiro, UBC associate dean and head of the Island Medical Program. "This is largely thanks to such an enthusiastic welcome from the program staff, UVic and the wider community."

At the inaugural ceremony, Casiro announced endowments from the estate of the late Robert Ford, Dr. Bruno and Catherine Freigang and Dr. Robert and Patricia Young, and thanked them for their generosity in helping to establish bursaries and scholarships for IMP students.

The program has also evoked a strong and positive response in the medical community and attracted large numbers of local physicians to leadership and teaching positions. "We get almost daily phonecalls from Victoria and up-Island communities. Right now we have more doctors interested in helping with the program than students," says Casiro.

A large plane tree in the UVic campus quadrangle may help the class of 2008 to remember their roots. The seedling—from the descendant of a tree on the Greek Island of Cos where Hippocrates sat and lectured his students—was planted on the university grounds in May 1970 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Victoria Medical Society.

UBC professor emeritus and renowned medical historian Dr. William Gibson helped plant the tree as the head of the society at the time. The 92-year-old former UVic chancellor also braved the snow to welcome the IMP pioneers. He gave each a package of seeds taken from the UVic tree and a poster depicting the tree in each of the four seasons as a reminder of their medical heritage and tradition.

"I always dreamed there would be doctors educated here in Victoria," said Gibson, mingling with the new students following their first-day ceremony. "It's wonderful to see it finally happen."