Last week I attended the ceremony at TG where we handed out Long Service pins and it was great to hear the cheers of encouragement from team mates and watch as pictures were taken to celebrate as people received their pins. When I did a rough calculation with the book that was handed out, the people being recognized have committed about a thousand years of service to patients, families and each other. I am very proud to have been part of UHN for 22 years, but to meet people who have been committed to UHN for over 40 years? It was an honour. These ceremonies are held at all sites and you can check dates and times
here for the ceremonies at Toronto Western, Princess Margaret and Toronto Rehab. Please come out and help celebrate!
I'll confess to being a bit preoccupied last week as it was the first time I attended a meeting of the Board of Trustees as the Interim President & CEO. It is impressive to have such talented and experienced people devoting their volunteer time to UHN. Every Trustee also serves on Board committees, which means additional preparation and meeting time. If you're curious about our Board, its committees and the membership of each of those committees, you can access this information
here. I would also like to thank Darlene Dasent and Larry Baldachin for their work with the Finance and Audit Committee prior to the Board meeting and Ed Cole, Mike Nader, David Jaffray, Brad Wouters, and Fatima Sheriff who either made presentation to the Board last week or made sure that we were ready for the Board meeting well in advance. I look forward to the next Board meeting in February.
My final event of last week was Friday evening when the Pharmacy Department came together to mark 50 years of Pharmacy residency at UHN. The influence of that training goes well beyond the walls of UHN and I think I can speak for all clinicians when I say that, without the knowledge of drugs, drug interactions and dosing provided by pharmacists, our teams would have a much harder time keeping patients safe. This program has grown from 3 residency positions in 1966-67 to 6 positions this year, with a total of 170 pharmacists going through the program since 1966. On Friday, 50 of the former trainees, past pharmacy directors, education coordinators and staff were on hand to celebrate.
I'll end by thanking all of you who have got your flu shots this year. We're ahead of the pace of last year and a total of 9270 people have bared their arms. Given that there are already reports of flu out there, please get your shot – for your sake, for the sake of your family and friends and for the sake of our patients.
Charlie
