May 2020

When Dal’s Faculty of Medicine made the move to shut down all in-person learning in the middle of March, the Human Body Donation Program was also suspended, a rare or perhaps even unique event in its roughly 150-year history. It would not be long, however, before the program would be re-started to meet a new and urgent need: training in safe airway management and intubation procedures for frontline health care staff.

Convocation is a special time of year at Dalhousie Medical School; the culmination of so many journeys and experiences, a celebration of both time spent on campus and exciting new chapters set to begin. Although convocation will be celebrated virtually this year, 118 medical students have earned the right called to be “doctor” and to join the profession of physicians. Here are the stories of just a few of them:

The first Canadian clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine will be led by researchers at Dalhousie University, with testing set to begin as early as the next few weeks.

When third-year medical student Livia Anthes was awarded the Annie Hamilton Scholarship in Medicine last spring, she never could have imaged that just a year later it would be a source of safety and security during a global pandemic.