2 THE MEDIUM
MONDAY,
JANUARY 10, 2011
Katherine Luczynski, Editor | news@mediumonline.ca
Textbook revamps U of T curriculum SANA HAQ
Edward Cai/The Medium
UTMSU to drop parking fees STEFANIE MAROTTA ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Last Thursday, around 25 students gathered in the Presentation Room of the Student Centre to join the executives of the UTM Student Union. The UTMSU initiated a collective effort to spread awareness about increases in parking fees and strengthen student solidarity in efforts to lobby the motion. Vickita Bhatt, president of UTMSU, presented the union’s strategy to approach the initiative. Students split into three groups to brainstorm with the UTMSU executives. Participants engaged in lobby document preparation, creative awareness campaigns, and outreach planning. Combining outreach projects and lobby efforts, the UTMSU wants to work with the administration to find alternate solutions to finance the university’s parking structure. “How can we at UTM control the fate of all parki ng students when the power is in the hands of the UTM administration?” Bhatt asked participants. “The answer is the Erindale College Council. We want to see as many students at the ECC meeting as possible to hold your student representatives, professors, and senior administrators accountable.” The ECC is one of the highest governing bodies at UTM. Comprised of faculty and students, the council in this situation makes amendments and ratifies motions regarding ancillary fees. This includes parking, residence, and meal plans. All major faculty members wield one vote. As such, administration and teaching staff greatly outnumber the student vote with 75 seats. UTMSU seeks to fortify the
student voice within the Erindale College Council. At the upcoming ECC meeting, members will vote on a motion to increase parking fees by five percent. Due to the construction of two new buildings on campus, 440 parking spaces were lost. With a large increase in student enrolment, the administration chose to erect a parking structure to accommodate the need for space. The parking deck, with a projected price tag of $6.5 million, was financed with an amortization period of 10 years. With fewer parking spaces available, the university is not able to sell as many parking permits as previous years. To break even after five years, a rise in parking fees would be required to cover the costs (abiding by the guidelines of SARG, a committee that neg otiates with Parking Services). Last year, fees
“The parking deck should not have been built if they couldn’t fund it. I don’t think students should have to pay for a planning oversight.” —Vickita Bhatt
were increased by three percent. The last time an increase in fees was required was in 2006 when the CCT parking garage was constructed. Since then, fees have either decreased or remained constant. “There is money in the budget to provide the level of service that is helpful for students. I feel that
the level of service that they are providing with the current budget is not conducive to what students want,” Bhatt said. “The parking deck should not have been built if they couldn’t fund it. I don’t think students should have to pay for something that is a planning oversight.” At the organizing meeting, students and UTMSU executives discussed potential points of negotiation. Among the ideas that came up, many were interested in the concept of reforming SARG guidelines and, furthermore, extending the amortization period to pay off the mortgage. Taking sustainable concepts into consideration, students discussed proposing a change in the design of the parking lot. They suggested that parking on a diagonal would allow for more parking spaces, and therefore greater revenue from parking permits. “You need to put something in the lobby document that will convince them [the administration] that there is an alternative,” suggested James Boutilier, an ECC member and student. “If there isn’t an alternative way to fund the parking structure, they have no choice but to vote in favour of the increase.” The UTMSU urges students to attend the ECC meeting to hold the council fiscally responsible. “I wanted more people to come out to today’s meeting,” said Munib Sajjad, UTMSU VP External. “We’ll be holding another meeting soon to collect more opinions for the lobby document and get more people involved.” The Erindale College Council meeting will be held on January 26 at 3:15 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Davis Building. Students who are interested can find more information about ECC on the UTM website.
A complaint lodged in early 2010 by an unidentified student and two doctors in the faculty of medicine about a textbook has prompted U of T to change its curriculum. The complaint was about perceived drug industry involvement in a textbook on managing chronic pain that was funded and copyrighted by the makers of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Dr. Rick Glazier and Dr. Philip Berger, both physicians at St. Michael’s Hospital, one of University of Toronto’s teaching hospitals, had asked for the inquiry. They were approached by a medical student who was concerned about the industrysponsored book brought to the university’s Centre for the Study of Pain. Dr. David Mock, the dean of dentistry at U of T, said in an interview with CBC News that the 371-page book had been provided to students by an unpaid guest lecturer with ties to the drug company. Lorraine Ferris, the inquiry head, reports that she has not found evidence of wrongdoing or actual conflict of interest. However, her report for The Canadian Press says that “time is of the essence” in revising the curriculum of the 20-hour course taught to students in medical, dental, and pharmacy school. She said in an interview with CTV News that planning for the revised curriculum needs to begin soon, in time for delivery of the next course this spring. In her report, Ferris said the revised curriculum should include delivery of balanced information by experts in several fields, including pharmacology and painkiller addiction. “As part of their discussions, faculty will need to address important, topical, and often sensitive issues regarding opioids—including, for example, opioid addiction, improper opioid prescribing, at-risk communities, illicit sales and drug diversion, ‘double-doctoring’, and recreational sharing and use of opioids,” Ferris commented to CBC News. In an interview with CBC News, Berger said, “[Ferris] has met our concerns head-on,” and was pleased by her inquiry. “To me—and, I think, quite correctly—she’s called for a higher standard in a public policy area of a very high profile and of interest to both government and the public. I think it’s fair to say that the implementation of professor Ferris’s recommendations will make the public safer and likely will save lives.” Ferris also suggested that the curriculum, development, and accountability for the pain course be transferred from the Centre for the Study of Pain, which conducts pain research and helps educate doctors, dentists, nurses, and pharmacists. Rather, the Centre for Interprofessional Education, which takes a multi-disciplinary approach to developping the skills of health professionals, should now take over curriculum and accountability. Ferris also recommended that only U of T faculty members teach the pain course.
“I think this is a good thing,” Mock said in an interview with CBC News. “I’m not looking at this as a hand-slap for the [pain] centre. I think what we’ve done is move it into the more modern governance system that we are developing at the university.” Mock stated that from 2002 to 2006 the pain course was funded by donations, including $117,000 in unrestricted educational grants from four drug companies: Merck-Frosst, Purdue Pharma, Pharmacia Canada, and Pfizer; the drug companies had no direct input on the course content. Since 2007, the program has been funded solely by faculty budgets. Purdue’s copyrighted book on pain management had been brought in by Dr. Roman Jovey, an unpaid guest lecturer and co-author of the book who left copies “for anyone to take”. Jovey, medical director for a chain of clinics called the Centres for Pain Management, is a member of Purdue’s speakers’ bureau, paid by the company to conduct workshops and lectures.
“If we want to be politically correct... Nothing that has any kind of pharma logo or name or ownership should be given out.” —Dr. Roman Jovey Jovey confirmed in an interview with CTV News that he had left copies of the book, entitled Managing Pain: The Canadian Health Care Professional’s Reference, for students. “It was a gift from Purdue. I’m not at all embarrassed or ashamed. I think it’s a darn good book,” he said. “If we all want to be politically correct and have the appearance of being politically correct, then I guess I get it—that nothing that has any kind of pharma logo or name or ownership should be given out to medical students.” In an interview with CTV News, Berger said that report raises the issue of the pharmaceutical industry potentially affecting undergraduate medical education in general. “The danger is an obvious one. It is in the interests of the drug company to have physicians prescribing as many opioid medications to as many patients as possible. It’s the only way it makes its money,” said Berger. “So it raises a very serious question about whether industry-sponsored speakers or materials should ever be used in undergraduate medical education because the primary interest of the pharmaceutical industry who makes these drugs is to have people on the drugs—not to educate students properly.” “This would apply to any disease that requires medications.” Recently a study was published showing prescription rates for opiods, including OxyContin, which had soared in Ontario over the last two decades, as well as the number of deaths linked to the narcotic.
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