McGill’s Faculty of Medicine is set to establish a new Chair in Medical Education following gifts of $1 million each from Herbert Black, Deirdre Stevenson and Dr. Robert Stevenson, and the Molson Foundation, totaling $3 million in donations.
The donation came on the heels of a $2.4 million donation in October by Chancellor Arnold Steinberg that helped to establish McGill’s Healthier Societies Initiative. Both gifts are part of a larger initiative launched by Campaign McGill to further the university’s mission of progress and innovation.
The gifted Richard and Sylvia Cruess Chair will be the first chair at McGill’s Centre of Medical Education, which is a part of the Faculty of Medicine. It will seek to improve the quality of medical education for future doctors and nurses.
“With more research in medical education we will continue to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the health professions, which will in turn improve health care delivery in Quebec,” said Yvonne Steinert, the associate dean of Faculty Development.
“We are extremely grateful to all of our donors and supporters, and are confident that their philanthropic contributions will continue to help McGill advance its academic mission,” said Marc Weinstein, Vice-President of Development and Alumni Relations.
The new Chair is named after Drs. Richard and Sylvia Cruess, who have been recognized for their contributions to medical professionalism and medicine’s social contract. They have published extensively in the field of medical professionalism, especially with work on what it means and how to teach it to students.
Richard Cruess is a former Chair of Orthopedic Surgery and Dean of McGill¹s Faculty of Medicine and said he was very honoured by the gift.
“It is exactly the type of legacy that we would both like to leave,” he said.
Sylvia Cruess is an endocrinologist and professor of Medicine who served for 18 years as the medical director of the Royal Victoria Hospital and is optimistic about what this Chair will bring to McGill, hoping that “the field of medical education at McGill will continue to flourish.”
Besides the creation of the Chair, the Faculty of Medicine is also focusing on other initiatives such as a fellowship in medical education and program support.
The donations are just some of the high profile gifts donated to Campaign McGill, which was launched in October 2007.
“Three years after the launch, we have already surpassed the $580 million mark, in spite of having gone through one of the deepest economic recessions in a generation,” Weinstein said.
