Aug 17, 2016

Celebrating Staff Achievements at the Faculty of Medicine

Faculty & Staff
Staff Impact Awards - 2016
By

Julia Soudat

Staff Impact Awards - 2016Last month, the Faculty of Medicine held its fourth annual staff recognition barbeque to honour the efforts and hard work of the Faculty’s administrative, technical and research staff.

“At the Faculty of Medicine, we want to be sure we recognize the fine work our professional staff do — every day,” said Tim Neff, Chief Administrative Officer.

The Manager of the International Program for Postgraduate Medicine Education, John Kerr, received the David Keeling Award for Administrative Excellence. Kerr was recognized for the development of a team of visa officers who provide customer service to trainees thousands of miles away, supporting the Department of Postgraduate Medical Education’s Fellowship Education Advisory Committee and establishing great relationships with staff, learners, faculty and with external stakeholders.

Nancy Edwards, the Faculty of Medicine Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer won the Leadership Award for creating a collegial and balanced work environment and supporting the professional development of staff. She has ensured collegiality and mirth and ensured staff felt fully engaged in their current roles and unanimously considered U of T Medicine to be their ideal work environment.

Sarah Letovsky, the Department of Family and Community Medicine’s Academic Appointments Administrator won this year’s New Employee Award. She has helped new staff and hospital administrators gain the competency and understanding of the many facets of academic appointment portfolio and facilitated workshops and training sessions with our hospital administrators.

The award for Service in a Laboratory Research Environment went to Jiongwen Ou, a member of Professor Grant Brown’s lab in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. Ou’s skills as an outstanding bench scientists and his excellent organizational skills have helped undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the research group.

Ferzeen Sammy, Rama Ponda, and Kathryn Babcock of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology won the Quality Improvement Award for effectively tackling the challenge of increasing graduate student expansion without decreasing the quality of their program. They played a key role in presenting the ‘face’ of the Department to new applicants, supporting direct interactions on campus and at recruitment fairs, delivering personalized correspondence and posting informative content on an easy to navigate website.

The Fostering a Collaborative Environment Award was received by Ike Okafor, Jessie Metcalfe and Becky Smith. Okafor, Metcalfe and Smith developed the Community of Support initiative in March 2015 to increase the number of Black medical students at the University of Toronto and studying medicine in Canada by providing admissions guidance, mentorship, job-shadowing, volunteer & research opportunities for Black Canadians interested in Medicine.