Useful information for Graduate Students in Pathology and their Supervisors.

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Graduate Program Newsletter

For the Week of  April 25, 2022

PALM Student Representatives:

Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies Committee (GPSC) - Madeline Lauener

PALM Curriculum Committee - Zeshuo Li Graduate Student Society - Saumadritaa Kar 

PALM Awards & Recognition Committee - Amirhossein Bahreyni

PALM Wellbeing Ambassador - Madeline Lauener (mlauener@alumni.ubc.ca)

Students

Awards:

Spring Graduate Awards Competition

A number of university awards for the upcoming academic year are available to current and incoming graduate students. The maximum value of funding that can be offered to a student is $16,000, or $22,000 for the #6495 Andrew Nord Fellowships in Rheumatology. Applicants will apply via their graduate programs with a single application that may be considered for as many of the Spring Graduate Awards as they are eligible for, taking note of the following important considerations:

• Eligibility: To be eligible to receive funding, applicants must meet both the overall eligibility requirements as outlined on the award webpage (ex. months of study) and all of the eligibility requirements for each individual Spring Graduate Award they apply for. Applicants will not be considered for an award if they do not clearly meet the criteria for the award.
• Selection: While award recipients will be selected based on the evaluation criteria, priority will be given to eligible candidates who do not hold significant scholarship funding (i.e., $16,000 or higher) for the 2022/23 academic year (September 2022 to August 2023). If a student is offered Spring Awards funding, and later receives other scholarship funding of $16,000 or higher for the same period, the Spring Awards funding offer would normally be rescinded.
  • Exception: Some of the Spring Graduate Awards have very niche award descriptions (eligibility requirements). For example, the #6362 award ‘James and Setsuko Thurlow Scholarship in Peace and Disarmament Studies’. If a Spring Graduate Award receives a very low number of eligible applications, it may be awarded to a student who already has significant scholarship funding.
• Application deadline: The deadline for submission of your complete application is 4 p.m. on Monday, May 2nd, 2022. 

For more information, such as the complete eligibility requirements and application materials, please refer to: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/spring-graduate-awards-competition.

Announcements:

Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies :

GradUpdate -   In this issue: Breaking Patterns of Procrastination, Supervisory Relationships Case Studies (authorship and leaves), Anti-racism Response Training, Designing for Transformation,and more.

Deadline Reminder for August 31 2022 Program Completion

FRIDAY, 10 JUNE 2022 – Doctoral dissertation (and supporting documentation) submitted to Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for external examination

FRIDAY 5 AUGUST – Last Day for Final Doctoral Oral Examination

FRIDAY, 26 AUGUST – Acceptance of final, approved master's theses and doctoral dissertations by Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Faculty of Medicine:

Join the “GPE Office's Wellness Team Meet and Greet” event on April 25th from 1pm-2pm (in person event):

When/Where: April 25th from 1:00-2:00 pm at The BC Cancer Agency Lecture Theatre (675 W 10th Avenue).You will have a chance to meet with Asmae El Bouhali, our embedded counsellor specifically dedicated to Graduate Students in the Faculty of Medicine and Sandrine Espie, our Wellness Support Coordinator.

What: During this meeting, you will learn how to access wellness resources, connect with peers, share some of your concerns, needs and suggestions regarding wellbeing.

Who: Graduate students in the VGH precinct for this particular session. Events at the other Faculty of Medicine sites (St. Paul's, Women's and Children's campus, UBC Point Grey) will follow shortly. This event will be an opportunity to introduce our wellness team; more events are planned at other sites in the coming months!

Feel free to contact us for more info sandrine.espie@ubc.ca

Student Health & Wellbeing

GPE Wellness Newsletter, 'The Breathing Room', has been released and can be accessed here .

Wellness Centre End of Term Service Hours

As we head towards the end of the academic term, below are some updates to our services and hours:

1. Ask the Info Desk - Explore health and wellbeing resources with our Wellness Centre Assistants. Students can drop by the Wellness Centre Info Desk in person to ask about the services and supports available for UBC students, email us, or drop-in virtually via the Zoom Room Monday to Friday, 11am-4pm until April 29th.
2. Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPOC) Wellness Mentors - If you identify as Indigenous, Black, or as a Persons of Colour, IBPOC Wellness Mentors are here to support your wellbeing. Virtual and in-person mentoring conversations are available on a drop-in and booked appointment basis on Wednesday & Thursday, 11am-2pm until April 21st . Learn more or book an appointment via the Meet the Mentors webpage.
3. The Shop - Access safer, low-cost sex toys and sexual health products and learn more about sexual health with trained Peer Health Educators. In-person browsing for the Shop will be available Monday, Wednesday & Friday 11am-4pm until April 25th.
4. Wellness Centre: Online - Self-Enroll on Canvas to learn about health-related resources and strategies for your wellbeing, as well as upcoming wellness events and services.
5. Nurse on Campus – This program has now ended for the academic year. If students wish to speak to a health professional, they can book an appointment at UBC Student Health Services or call HealthLink BC at 811 for answers to health-related questions.

UBCCA Peer Support Group

The UBC Cancer Association is a safe space for people who are personally experiencing/have experienced cancer to connect with peers and share their experiences.  Please see the poster here.

Sessions will proceed on a biweekly to monthly basis and be focused around member-driven choices of discussion topics and events, led by trained peer facilitators. To learn more about the group and to register, please click this link.

Virtual Symposium by the Office of REDI

Registration is now open for the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) inaugural virtual symposium: “Race Ideology: Historical Perspectives, Current Realities and Re-imagining the Future.” on May 25, 2022 from 8:30am - 1:00pm.

Professional Development & Workshops :

Academy of Translational Medicine

The Academy of Translational Medicine its final module of the series of micro-courses for PhDs, Postdocs and PIs with an in-person workshop at DHCC on May 2nd.

Topic: How healthcare buys and what this means for translational researchers.

Description: In this module, you’ll learn some of the fundamental principles that inform how Healthcare buys. This links back to the module 1 concept on customer hierarchy, but in this module, we “follow the money.” Key differences are highlighted between therapeutics where pharmaceutical companies are involved versus diagnostics and devices, and also between public payer and private insurance models. At the end of this workshop, you will understand the players that impact the economics and cost structure of the category in which you will participate and the implications for decision-making at different stages of development.

Link to the event details including links to materials and registration forms: Entrepreneurship Micro-Courses | Academy of Translational Medicine (ubc.ca)

 Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Student Association (PaSA )

 President: Raelyn Gallant

 Vice President: Nancy Yang

 Event Coordinator: Theodore Lam

 External Affairs Coordinator: Madeline Lauener

Upcoming Meetings & Events:

PaSA invites everyone to join us at the meetings.

The next PaSA Meeting will be held on Monday, April 25th, 2022 @ 5:00pm via Zoom:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/63631399673?pwd=OUwrMEY3L0s0NEJjMjVqVnZhRndIZz09 

Meeting ID: 636 3139 9673
Passcode: 628541

PaSA is looking for individuals to take over the association as many of the current members will be graduating this year. We are looking for executive positions as well as general members. PaSA's main goal is to promote a sense of community in the graduate student pathology department. Being a part of your graduate student's association not only looks good on your CV, but also allows you to get to know more of the faculty and students that are within your research field. Below are some of the available positions. If you would like to take on a role please attend some of the meetings to familiarize yourself with the process.

Pathology Student Association Roles

President: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Chair meetings
• Prepares meeting minutes with a list of discussion points and circulates to other members prior to meeting
• Oversees event planning and delegates tasks appropriately
• Submit documents required for annual club renewal (May)

Vice President: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Chairs at meetings in the absence of the president.
• Plans, coordinates, and recruits' committees to manage a series of meetings and programs.
• Coordinates programs with the president and the executive committee

Social Media Coordinator: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Prepare flyers and promotional documents for events/meetings
• Manage PaSA Facebook/ Twitter/ Instagram accounts
• Coordinates with Heather Cheadle (Program Assistant) to ensure faculty members + graduate students receive appropriate emails

Event Coordinator: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Ensure events run smoothly the day of, assigning roles and organizing volunteers
• In charge of pricing out venues and additional costs for finance
• Organize event details, decorations, seating plan, time schedule

External Affairs Coordinator (Supports VP of Finances): ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Emails companies to secure external funding (StemCell, Sigma, Zymeworks, etc.)
• Ensures club and departmental logo appears on all event promotional items
• Ensures GSS logo (or logo of any funding agency) appears on promotional items

VP of Finance: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Applies for funning - GSS funding ($300/year), PALM funding ($1000/year)
• Submit Event Fund Report ( GSS funding ) after each event
• Forwards Heather Cheadle all receipts for reimbursement ( PALM funding )
• Maintains records of donations, available funds, and expenses of social events
• Advice on financial feasibility

Administration: ( approx. up to 4 hours per month)

• Records meeting minutes and member attendance for each meeting
• Prepare meeting minutes at end of the month to be put out to all of faculty/grad
• Book rooms and event venues
• Uploads documents to Google Drive/ ensures it has all records

General Members: (number of hours contributed chosen by member)

• Helps with a variety of tasks – event planning, setup, promotion, etc

Supervisors

Supervisory Committee Composition

We want to remind you that when a PhD student is putting together their Committee, or a MSc student is transferring to PhD and must add an additional member, at least 50% of the student's committee (including the Supervisor) must be composed of G+ PS members. This may influence the number of members on any given PhD Committee, especially if the Supervisor is not a G+PS member.

For non-members we need to review a CV for the approval process by the Program which is followed by an application to G+PS in order to have them serve on a PhD Committee. One application must be made for each student committee.

When identifying potential members please also try to consider diversity within the committee.

Free Statistical Software

As a member of the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine you are invited to use the statistical software JMPPro v16 from SAS institute. This software is made available for academic purposes only and is licensed annually. For more information on the capabilities of JMP, please see the website www.jmp.com . Interested parties must contact Steve Kalloger at kalloger@mail.ubc.ca to acquire the software.

Student Recruitment for May 2022 & September 2022

Please email the Graduate Program Coordinator at heather.cheadle@pathology.ubc.ca if you would like to be added to our Supervisors Seeking Students page on our website. Many potential students contact us for help with finding a supervisor, and this is their main resource.

Student Position Advertising

In September 2020 Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS) launched a new service for the advertisement of faculty, graduate student, and postdoc positions through their websites (for graduate students and postdocs), and, if relevant, external career portals.

All faculty and staff are able to post any open positions at https://faculty-staff.grad.ubc.ca/recruitment/job-ads . Student positions will be advertised on grad.ubc.ca in the project directory and embedded into the G+PS researcher profiles . Postdoc positions will be advertised in the Postdoc Career Opportunities website.

If opted for in the posting, all faculty, student and postdoc posts will also be shared with external portals via system-to-system integration, requiring no additional work. These portals are included:

Nature Careers ; EurAxess  ; Mendeley Careers ; LinkedIn  ; jobRxiv ; handshake ; Twitter

CTLT Teaching Workshops

Workshops on Teaching through CTLT can be found here , including; Individual Consultation with a Learning Designer About your Course, Teaching with Zoom, Getting Started with Canvas and more!