First Annual LMP Second Year Reception

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to our first annual LMP Second Year Reception. The event was a success with over twenty LMP students in attendance. We would especially like to thank Dr. Rita Kandel, Dr. Douglas Templeton, Dr. Avrum Gotlieb, and Dr. Michal Opas for offering their time and making the event very informative. We hope that everyone enjoyed the event and got to know each other. The LMPSU hopes to provide many more events in the future, so stay tuned!

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Your webmaster,

Mike Lee

Are You Ready for Course Selection?

Hello everyone,

Course selection is coming up soon! To help you prepare, the LMPSU has compiled some tips and tricks (e.g. where to find course evaluations data) to help you make an informed decision:

1. See what past students think. To help you make informed decisions on courses and profs, check out the course evaluations from previous years (remember filling these out at the end of every semester?)

Portal (portal.utoronto.ca):

 

Quercus (q.utoronto.ca):

 

2. Select your courses based on your own learning style and schedule. If you prefer active participation, look for courses with smaller class sizes or tutorials. U of T also offers first-year seminars for classes of 20 students in a variety of disciplines. If you dislike sitting for long periods of time, it may be beneficial to choose three 1-hour lectures over one 3-hour lecture. If you commute, you might want to avoid picking lecture sections that are too far apart or are incompatible with transit schedules.

3. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Every hour spent in lecture/lab/tutorial likely translates to 2-4 more hours of homework or studying. Try to avoid creating times with overwhelming workloads.

4. Planning to take more than 5 courses in a semester? You are not allowed to enrol in your 6th course until after priority drops (starting August 3), so choose those first five courses wisely. If you are planning on taking more than 6 courses, you will need permission from your registrar.

5. Make sure you know when your start time is. Depending on your year of study, your start time will be displayed on ACORN on (first day of course enrolment for 4th years – July 11, 3rd years – July 16, 2nd years – July 19, and 1st years – July 26). Fun fact: your start time is dependent on how many credits you have completed. The more credits you have, the earlier your time.

6. Make multiple backup timetables. They will come in handy if the sections/courses you wanted get filled up before your start time.

7. Start early. You can start adding your courses to your enrolment cart now, so that you can save time and reduce frustration if the website lags on enrolment day.

Good luck on getting the courses you want! Stay tuned for LMPSU events throughout the year!

 

Your webmaster,

Mike Lee

Artificial Intelligence in Modern Medicine: Misnomer or Oxymoron?

Hello Everyone,

Last Friday, we hosted a seminar on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medicine and we were able to invite Dr. Templeton and Dr. Diamandis as our guest speakers.  Both speakers gave us great insights into what AI is, what it’s capable and the outlook of medicine with the emergence of some very powerful AI technologies. While jobs are at stake, there still remains many unknowns about AI safety and it’s ethical implications certainly require further exploration. AI is not meant to replace, but rather, should be treated as a clinical tool to assist physicians in modern medicine to better provide patient-based care. Despite some emerging AI taking on the critical roles of pathologists and dermatologists, we must remember that AI so far has been limited to diagnosis and there will still be a great demand for human doctors capable of showing compassion, empathy and having the expert knowledge for the treatment/therapy that best suit the needs of the patient.

I hope everyone enjoyed the seminar and here are some pictures to recap the event:

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Your webmaster,

 

Tsz Ying, So

Winter Pub Night 2018

 

Happy Family Day LMP!!!!

Can you believe it’s Reading Week already? Last Friday night, LMPSU and IMMSA collaborated to bring you a cozy Winter Pub Night!!! We had a great turn out with lots of drinks and food served. We hope you had an amazing time and moments captured from the night can be viewed here.

Please continue checking our Facebook pages and here on LMPSU website for upcoming events. If you wish to see higher quality and comments/tags for these photos, please visit our Facebook page. Updates on this year’s LMPSU apparel will also be available soon.

I wish you all a great reading week 😀

Repair & Recovery: Facets of Fibrosis (Jan 2018)

LMPSU Presents, Repair & Recovery: Facets of Fibrosis – Post-Conference Summary

Each year, the Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology Student Union (LMPSU) executive team presents a research conference that allows attendees to learn about the most current and cutting edge research in biomedical science from experts in the field. On January 13th, the LMPSU held its 6th annual research conference, titled Repair and Recovery: Facets of Fibrosis. This year, the conference invited 7 renowned researchers within the field of fibrotic disease to join us at the University of Toronto. Throughout the day, we heard great talks from each speaker about their work, ranging from fibrosis in the kidneys to the lungs, as well as molecular mechanisms underlying fibrotic processes, pertinent in understanding the key targets for promoting healthy wound healing.

Despite a sudden drop in temperature, the conference kicked off as scheduled at 9 AM with attendees steadily trickling in. Guest speakers and attendees were greeted with warm beverages and breakfast and the conference officially began at 9:30 AM with an introduction from the LMPSU co-presidents, Negar Khosraviani and Ramana Trivedi. Our first two speakers, Dr. Boris Hinz and Dr. Mohit Kapoor, introduced the audience to the fundamental mechanisms underlying fibrotic disease. After a short break with refreshments, the conference returned with three talks on renal fibrosis. Dr. Darren Yuen discussed the importance of kidney stiffness as a marker for health and Dr. Jeffrey Dickhout presented research on chronic kidney disease in animal models. Following Dr. Dickhout’s talk, lunch was served in the Stone Lobby, accompanied by poster presentations from U of T graduate and undergraduate students. After lunch, the renal fibrosis segment came to an end as Dr. Andras Kapus presented his work on the role of transcription factors in regulating the cell cytoskeleton. The final segment was on pulmonary fibrosis and Dr. Kjetil Ask joined us in discussing the strategies for targeting macrophages in improving fibrotic disease of the lung. Our final speaker, Dr. Andrew Leask presented research on the interactions between microenvironment and chronic fibrosis disease. The conference came to a close as the LMPSU co-presidents thanked the guest speakers, volunteers and attendees for joining us to listen to these captivating talks on fibrosis.

The LMPSU would like to thank all our guest speakers for taking the time to share some great insights from their current research with us. We also would like to thank the LMP department and volunteers for their help and support in organizing this year’s conference. Finally, we express sincere gratitude to all attendees of the event and we hope you enjoyed the poster presentations and talks from the conference. We hope to see you next year!

Moments from the Conference

2017 Fall Games Night!!!

Hello again!

I hope everyone had a great reading week and is getting settled into their caffeine-loaded, sleep-deprived schedules once again. 🙁

To cheer you guys up, let us reminisce about the good times we had just before reading week. On Nov 3, LMPSU hosted the first games night of the year! We had an excellent turn out, so thank you to everyone who came to join us! We had so many different games to play, served with loads of free food and drinks too. I personally was having too much fun playing Taboo so I didn’t really keep track of what everyone else was doing but everyone seemed to be having a great time, regardless of what board game they chose. In all, it was a fantastic night and a great way to wind down and relax. Enjoy some pics from that night here!

 

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2017-2018 General Meeting, Mentorship Launch & Pub Night!

Hello LMP!

IMG_5999-minOn Monday Oct 2, LMPSU held its first general meeting for the 2017-2018 year, with a kick-start of the mentorship program and elections forum. We had an excellent turn out, especially from the 2nd year LMP students (woohoo!). The LMPSU exec team first introduced themselves, followed by a warm welcome to the LMP community by Dr. Kandel, the Department chair and Dr. Templeton, the LMP Undergraduate Coordinator.

We then had our mentorship launch where mentees and mentors introduced themselves and got to know each other as they look forward to the many events LMPSU has lined up for them.

IMG_3378-minWe quickly switched gears to the elections forum where we saw some amazing candidates give their speeches about their ideas for LMPSU this year. Some candidates could not make it to the event and thus Negar read-aloud their statements, showcasing what each candidate wanted to achieve while serving on the LMPSU. We had a lot of laughs especially for the graphic designer position #creativity #playswithphotoshop #memes. The night slowly came to an end with pub night where a lot of great food and EXCELLENT spring rolls were served!IMG_3429-min

 

I, and everyone on the LMPSU, hope that you all had a great night for those that came. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry, IMG_3416-minthere will be lots of fun stuff coming – so keep checking our Facebook pages and the LMPSU website here for updates:

https://lmpsu.sa.utoronto.ca

https://www.facebook.com/groups/226540430724577/

Pub Night and Global Forensic Medicine Seminar

LMPSU’s first pub night took place mid-February at the Fox and the Fiddle. The night was jam packed with great food, drinks and amazing company! You can tell LMPSU has been working very hard to plan so many events throughout the semester. Very recently (yesterday, in fact), not too long after pub night, we were able to invite Dr. Pollanen in joining us to speak about LMP and forensic medicine in a global community where science intersects with justice, law and social determinants of health. Here are some pics captured from pub night and the seminar, enjoy!

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Beyond the Lancet: Conference on Surgical Technology and Applications of Disease

16722602_1318949441496915_6718769905431694773_oOn January 28, 2017, LMPSU held its 5th annual conference on advances in surgical technologies. We were able to invite 8 guest speakers, each of whom is an expert within the field of robotics, reconstruction, imaging or transplantation.

We started off the day with a talk on the applications of 3D printing in craniofacial and cleft surgery and wrapped up the conference with a presentation on ex vivo repair of lungs for transplantation. Fresh fruits and snacks were served during intermittent breaks and all attendees joined us for lunch in the stone lobby.16700632_1318949431496916_3901465910121317454_o
We had a great time learning about the various advances in surgical technologies and their future prospects in Canada’s health system. Attendees asked a multitude of excellent questions, eliciting very thought-provoking discussions between the guest speakers and the audience.
The LMPSU extends the warmest gratitude to our guest speakers and conference attendees for taking time out of their busy schedules to join us in making this year’s conference, Beyond the Lancet, a great success.16664925_1318951144830078_6910471319203166494_o

To revisit some highlights captured by our photographers from the event, please click here.

Thank you and we hope to see you again at next year’s conference!

Your Webmaster,

Tsz Ying 🙂

Career Seminar

On November 28, we had the pleasure of inviting Dr. Gotlieb to speak about career development and planning. We hope you all enjoyed the seminar and took away with you some excellent tips on building your career in the sciences. Please enjoy some moments captured from the event and we look forward to seeing you at the annual conference, Beyond the Lancet: Conference on Surgical Technologies and Applications to Disease on January 28. For details please visit: https://lmpsu.sa.utoronto.ca/lmp-conference/

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