Dan Hunt, associate dean for academic affairs, is leaving the UW School of Medicine to become dean of a newly created medical school in Ontario, Canada.
Hunt will leave the UW on June 15 to become dean of the Thunder Bay, Ontario campus of Northern Ontario Medical School. The new institution is affiliated with Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. The medical school will have campuses in Thunder Bay and Sudbury.
Hunt, 56, joined the UW in 1977 as an instructor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and became a full professor in 1993. He became assistant dean for curriculum in the UW School of Medicine in 1983, and has been associate dean for academic affairs since 1987. He is also a UW alumnus, having earned his bachelor of science degree here in 1969.
Hunt said he has enjoyed working with the UW faculty and staff, as well as the many medical students who have graduated during his tenure here. When he leaves this summer, he will have been involved with 18 graduating classes at the UW School of Medicine. Hunt will read the names of graduates at the graduation ceremony at the end of this school year.
The chance to start a new medical school from the ground up is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he said. Northern Ontario Medical School will train physicians to serve rural, underserved, and aboriginal, or Native North American, populations, which are of great interest to Hunt. In addition, he is looking forward to the small medical school environment of about 55 students per entering class.
Hunt is excited about creating a program to help combat the shortage of doctors in the medically underserved area of northern Ontario, as well as in the rest of Canada.
The Northern Ontario Medical School curriculum will emphasize case-study learning, and much of the clinical training will take place in small community settings supported by broadband communication. The first class of students will enter Northern Ontario Medical School in 2005.
January 30, 2004