Nathalie Dunleavy
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Dr. Peter Walker, and family, with Dr. Arlington Dungy and President Gilles Patry seated behind. |
When the crowd stood in standing ovation, there was a common sentiment in the room: it will be hard to replace the dean of medicine.
“It’s a sad day for the Faculty of Medicine,” said President Gilles Patry at the garden party tribute held for outgoing dean, Peter Walker on June 27, 2006. “The shoes are so big we haven’t been able to fill them yet,” he joked.
Three funds were set-up to pay tribute to Dr. Walker. The Women in Leadership fund reflects the dean’s commitment to a work environment supportive of women and their advancement in senior health education careers.
The student bursary fund will honour Dr. Walker’s wish to give financial assistance to medical students as an investment in our future.
In honour of Dr. Walker, the Faculty of Medicine and the Academy of Medicine raised $26,000 for a student bursary in a recent golf tournament, with funds to be matched by the Government of Ontario.
Dr. Walker feels pride in the Faculty’s sense of social consciousness and in initiatives such as the implementation of the e-curriculum, the Aboriginal program, and the bilingual program, which is the only one of its kind in Canada. “Even though these weren’t easy things to do … these were the right things to do.”
“He’s changed everything,” said Dr. Arlington Dungy, associate dean of alumni and student affairs at the Faculty of Medicine. Under Dean Walker’s leadership funding at the Faculty tripled from $31 million to $114 million.
Other accomplishments include the start of construction of a $56-million research building addition, the increase in the medicine entry class from 84 to 152 students, and the creation of the Institute of Population Health.
